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DeepBeige wrote:We might as well be arguing about Space Marines being ten feet tall...quote]

Space Marines are nine feet tall.


Unrelatedly
A note to all y'all hataz: I just started this discussion because the Tau Empire's rise to power is a weird thing in the 40k universe and I haven't heard it talked about much. Figured it'd be fun to discuss.

And now for something completely different: Note that this poll currently shows something like a bell curve.

This poll can't be plotted on a graph as the preference choice is not numerical data.

Glad we were able to argue about that, but given that Wikipedia is the absolute source of all truth I concede. Space Marines are totally 10 ft tall (excepting the special few who reach the gargantuan heights of 10' 1".

Laughing God wrote:

Its possible. but its just as possible for say C'tan (souless blue weakings make great snacks), chaos (why? more like why not for chaos), or the old ones (pension for making life). Really impossible to say why if there is a why, but hey with how passionate you all are about the subject please keep flaming one another for our amusment.

Penchant, not pension


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Wolfed wrote: While it's certainly possible that GW writers throw in such suspicions just to throw people off and create controversy, it's unlikely such ideas be thrown around without thought. If you give hints in a written fiction text, it's usually to promote the idea that it is true (the rumour I mean). So if you look at it from a writer's perspective, I think it's safe to assume that the Ethereals WERE tampered with (not a 100% certain, but certainly more than plausible).

I'd say rather the opposite, that gw are ready to throw any amount of random 'hints' just as a cheap grimdark, tactic. Also I doubt they really have any consistent plans for the various races beyond 'this race is the uberest!!!!' for whichever is new. Chaos used to be a big deal, now there are more invulnerable to the warp races than actually susceptable. Not to mention that each new race is touted as, even bigger than chaos!!!!

So for that reason the necrons did it. Because they are someones new (lame) pet project, the newest (oldest) kid on the block.

Honestly it's annoying, one day Doomsday is some badass who kills superman, the next he's nobody - getting wasted by the new guy.

Monster Rain wrote:

wikipedia wrote:While the bulk of humanity's military power is found in the Imperial Guard, the Space Marines(Adeptus Astartes)– giant, 10 foot tall, genetically-enhanced super-soldiers with world-destroying firepower and unswerving, fanatical loyalty to the Emperor of Mankind – are the most famous.

On average, they are closer to 10. Sorry, man.

You quote Wikipedia on that? Weak man. Weak. I'll go over here and mourn your loss of dignity.

Wiki-who?

Let's stick to the Black Library for facts shall we?

Or Lexicanum.

Or me.

Vargtass wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:

wikipedia wrote:While the bulk of humanity's military power is found in the Imperial Guard, the Space Marines(Adeptus Astartes)– giant, 10 foot tall, genetically-enhanced super-soldiers with world-destroying firepower and unswerving, fanatical loyalty to the Emperor of Mankind – are the most famous.

On average, they are closer to 10. Sorry, man.

You quote Wikipedia on that? Weak man. Weak. I'll go over here and mourn your loss of dignity.

Oh noes!

Interesting that someone getting mad over being wrong about the height of a space marine is lecturing me on dignity.

i think it are the old ones cause the old ones were snotlings (yes look in the ork codex) they also made the orks (wich are the coolest race of entire 40K i think) and the necrons so wy not the tau.

take that weird tau you muhahahaha!!!!!!!
so tha orks rule tha

In Salamander it's referenced that Ba'ken is taller then the average space marine which means he must be closer to 11ft tall.

I still side with the old ones (despite the fact my vote said diffrent). As Wolfed said, "If you give hints in a written fiction text, it's usually to promote the idea that it is true".
I said something just like this earlyer, though i admit my statements struture was somewhat less sound.

Monster Rain wrote:

Vargtass wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:

wikipedia wrote:While the bulk of humanity's military power is found in the Imperial Guard, the Space Marines(Adeptus Astartes)– giant, 10 foot tall, genetically-enhanced super-soldiers with world-destroying firepower and unswerving, fanatical loyalty to the Emperor of Mankind – are the most famous.

On average, they are closer to 10. Sorry, man.

You quote Wikipedia on that? Weak man. Weak. I'll go over here and mourn your loss of dignity.

Oh noes!

Interesting that someone getting mad over being wrong about the height of a space marine is lecturing me on dignity.

Hey, I know they are just about over an inch in height. I know not to trust Wikipedia on these kinds of things, because every nerd with an opinion can edit that damned page.


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Big-Mek-DAKA!!! wrote:i think it are the old ones cause the old ones were snotlings (yes look in the ork codex) they also made the orks (wich are the coolest race of entire 40K i think) and the necrons so wy not the tau.

take that weird tau you muhahahaha!!!!!!!
so tha orks rule tha

I didn't see this one earlier, but...

I'm very new to the 40K fluff, so some of you may be able to explain this, but I have a believability issue with:

DeepBeige wrote:
Ex: The Tau have advanced at an astonishing rate.
Q. How did they do that?
A. They haven't had an internal war for thousands of years and they were protected at just the ideal moment by a warp storm, a thing that doesn't often "protect" a planet, but rather starts throwing some weird chaos nonsense all over the place.

How does a race develop advanced technology, especially weapons technology, if there are no wars? War is the greatest accelerant of technological progress; if there is no need to penetrate thicker armour, there's no need to build a bigger gun.

Pael wrote:
100 years ago the car didn't exist

Yes they did, around 125 years ago I believe

maybe humans advanced like that in the "Dark ages of technology" and then when the emperor took over, he wiped everything clean, took away any threat to his power the common people could take advantage of, and eventually they were forgotten..
ever notice how everything the tau has looks the same? STC... juss sayin...

Ulver wrote:I'm very new to the 40K fluff, so some of you may be able to explain this, but I have a believability issue with:

DeepBeige wrote:
Ex: The Tau have advanced at an astonishing rate.
Q. How did they do that?
A. They haven't had an internal war for thousands of years and they were protected at just the ideal moment by a warp storm, a thing that doesn't often "protect" a planet, but rather starts throwing some weird chaos nonsense all over the place.

How does a race develop advanced technology, especially weapons technology, if there are no wars? War is the greatest accelerant of technological progress; if there is no need to penetrate thicker armour, there's no need to build a bigger gun.

Pael wrote:
100 years ago the car didn't exist

the Swiss have been a neutral country for 500 years and the only thing they have made is the cuckoo clock
if the tau had 6000 years of peace and safety, they would all be hippies



Yes they did, around 125 years ago I believe

Ulver wrote:I'm very new to the 40K fluff, so some of you may be able to explain this, but I have a believability issue with:

DeepBeige wrote:
Ex: The Tau have advanced at an astonishing rate.
Q. How did they do that?
A. They haven't had an internal war for thousands of years and they were protected at just the ideal moment by a warp storm, a thing that doesn't often "protect" a planet, but rather starts throwing some weird chaos nonsense all over the place.

How does a race develop advanced technology, especially weapons technology, if there are no wars? War is the greatest accelerant of technological progress; if there is no need to penetrate thicker armour, there's no need to build a bigger gun.

Yes, that is all true in the real world. I mean, come one, we developed Radars and Nuclear Power during wartime, and the Cold War is responsible for many advancements since then (most especially military technology). Then after the Cold War ended, we stopped going to the moon, and started thinking about dismantling NASA altogether.

In order to believe the 40k fluff you have to first believe at least some of the following premises:

1- Technology doesn't win wars
2- People don't notice that technology helps them out in wars
3- People don't see the need to invest in technology during wartime when it is most important to have.
4- Fascist governments don't invest in technology, especially when they're trying to take over the universe

But remember that Warhammer 40,000 is not the only fantasy setting that has this backwards idea that strife causes a complete degrading of all technology. The Battletech universe featured a group that stayed behind and fought centuries of war, and the peaceful group that did not fight all of those wars came back with superior technology and a very militaristic culture.


Now, the Tau don't fit into any of this fluff-wise. They should have had a need to invest in technology (like Tyranids, Chaos or Orks banging on the door). But still, the technological stagnation of the rest of the universe is just plain hilarious.


I mean, honestly. The way to conquer the universe is to simply take command of some small world that can be ignored by the Imperium for just long enough that you can start using the scientific method. After a while, you'll have better land weapons than the Titan Legions (a tanks is in every way superior to a walker) and a better fleet (sleeker, smaller ships or faster ships for guerilla warfare). Then you can conquer the universe one planet at a time.

I wish they would hurry up and employ a good engener. some of the ships the tau have really need to be made more practical

How bout the old ones are said to be dead to protect them. JUST to have fun with this and combine them all. The c'tan are the only ones who know of the survival of the old ones. The old ones showed the c'tan some old technologie and a place to make these products.
AT THE SAME TIME the chaos army is buying into this idea of no more old ones and trys to devise a scheme with the tau. The tau goes along with it to not blow their covor and to learn how to defeat the chaos once and for all. Meanwhile the old ones are coming up with new armors and weaponss that we dont know of yet. THEY USE ALL OF THIS to try and get people to think its all luck, so when people ask they cant find any trails. The imperium needs tau (TAU SAVED THEM ONCE ALREADY FROM TYRNIDS) so they wont start anything. And any other evil force is already aginst tau. The eldar made a seceret deal with the tau to share their physco w.e in exchange for the taus weapons, but the tau decided to thell the eldar of a massive chaos attack being planned aginst them. ??????????????


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we dont know of chaos attack yet. its not in our age yet. And even though it says theres no way to defeat the chaos....thats what it sys. CHAOS ARE EVIL...THEY CAN LIE. or not ewven know thta its possible for them to die

I'm going with nothing. The Tau did it themselves.

Also, what is the Greater Good? Is it like diety? Or just an idea, like the unification of all races or something?

odinsgrandson wrote: Then you can conquer the universe one planet at a time.

No no no, spread the greater good one planet at a time.

As to what the greater good is:

The Greater Good, or Tau'va (literally the "Good Greater" in the Tau Lexicon language), is the founding religio-philosophical principle of modern Tau society which holds that all sentient beings should strive to ensure the greatest good for the greatest number of beings in the galaxy. The Tau'va is based on the Tau caste system and is designed to allow for the advancement of the entire Tau society towards a more successful, prosperous and peaceful existence in the future without much of the violent conflict that marked earlier Tau history. The Greater Good was first introduced to the Tau during the Mont'au ("Death Age"), the long period of civil war fought between the different Tau cities and clans on their homeworld of T'au before the formation of the unified Tau Empire under the guidance of the Ethereal caste. It was during this time that the first Ethereals came to the other Tau and united the Tau tribes with the philosophy of the Greater Good. This concept involves the pursuit of perfect societal harmony and combines the particular strengths of each Tau caste to counter the many weaknesses and divisions their culture once possessed. Within only a few years after the Ethereals first revealed themselves, Tau culture was dominated by the pursuit of the Greater Good and the Tau Empire began its long march towards the development of advanced, starfaring technology. The philosophy of the Greater Good now guides the Tau in their attempts to conquer the rest of the galaxy and unite all the intellignt races in pursuit of the Greater Good. The philosophy forces the Tau to both desire to expand their empire for the Greater Good, and to absorb other intelligent races and their cultures into their own, which could ultimately have disastrous effects upon their ability to actually keep their newborn interstellar empire united. The ideal of the Greater Good appeals to some of the other intelligent races of the galaxy, and stranded units of the Imperial Guard are said to have surrendered themselves to the Tau and now live in the Tau Empire, where humans are known as the Gue'vesa. Such people are considered traitors and heretics by the Imperium of Man. During any conflict against other intelligent species, Tau Commanders often urge the enemy leaders to stop resisting the Tau Empire since they will be allowed to retain their own individual faiths and philosophical beliefs as long as they are compatible with the Greater Good.

So in a nutshell, its the unification of races thing?

yup. the tau just want everybody to be friends and be happy. sadly, there is a thing called evil.

Ledabot wrote:yup. the tau just want everybody to be friends and be happy.

So yorkskargrimironklaw was spot on

yorkskargrimironklaw wrote:
if the tau had 6000 years of peace and safety, they would all be hippies

Brother Bartius wrote:There is a C'tan obviously pulling the strings in the background of the Tau.

After all how else could they advance so rapidly!

Outside influence all the way - Watch this space the next weapons the Tau develop will be remarkably like gauss weaponry.

Okay, I'm hoping this is a joke...

DeepBeige wrote:
Ex: The Tau have advanced at an astonishing rate.
Q. How did they do that?
A. They haven't had an internal war for thousands of years and they were protected at just the ideal moment by a warp storm, a thing that doesn't often "protect" a planet, but rather starts throwing some weird chaos nonsense all over the place.
Q. How has an otherwise warlike race not fought any internal wars for 6000 years (most of that time with nobody else to fight, societies turn on themselves with no outside force to unite against) and why did a warp storm suddenly appear just before an imperial extermination and not cause any "Chaotic" influence?
)

They weren't affected because they DON'T REGISTER IN THE WARP.
That's a pretty simple concept, methinks. So why did you forget it?
And if that isn't the case, somehow, perhaps Chaos is what made them want to fight and destroy each other for 6000 years.


As for the poll as a whole (ha), I'd vote elbow grease.
In my massive amount of readings in the 40k universe, the Tau seem to be most often depicted as lucky upstarts.
Also, why the hell would the Eldar mess with any part of the Tau?
Since there would pretty much always be a chance that the Tau would just turn around and try to destroy the Eldar (you know, like they tend to do with ANYONE that doesn't agree to join the Greater Good, something I'm thinking the Eldar wouldn't enjoy).
Old Ones? Yeah, they're dead.
C'tan? As has been asked before, why?
Chaos? Same as above.

The Ethereals suddenly arriving certainly is odd, and something that I'm sure will be addressed in future GW fluff.
But I very, very much doubt that literally anything discussed in this topic other than the "Elbow Grease" method is even remotely plausible in the 40k universe.

I actually like to believe the eldar are using them to crush the imperium, just like in some story the dark eldar used an ork fleet to crush an imperial world. Either that or the found an STC from the imperium

wait, the old ones are snotlings?

I'd vote scions of the emperor...yep.

Of course, I'd also vote the 4th C'tan is the hivemind, so what do I know,

6000 years ago we weren't really an advanced race either (simple swords of bronze was a new thing). 2000 years ago not much had changed (Swords of Iron, huzzah). 1000 years ago we had made small progress (steel swords). 500 years ago we werein the same spot as the Tau around the time the Greater Good started grinding. Today we have some quite awesome technology. Why not the Tau, who are actually unified, as a difference to us?

Does anyone have any exact time between the unification under GG and today's Tau? Because as far as I know we have no exact date so it could either be yesterday or 6000 years (in Warhammer sense) ago.

Wowza this thread has been... vigorously opinionated at points.

I've always thought this was an interesting question. Of the options, Old ones, eldar and Elbow grease seem the most likely

(I discard Chaos because the little blue weirdos barely exist in the warp and there are specific statements on how they have never had a single chaos traitor. Necrons are a bit odd... I suppose they did the pariah stunt but a random nice-guy race is an odd step for them - I can just about twist things enough for the idea to be beneficial to them but I don't believe it).

Eldar are also a distant third because I recall an Eldrad quote saying that he has no idea what the deal with the tau is. But he feels curiously protective of them and thinks they may one day eclipse the achievements of even the Eldar". Kinda suggests the Eldar aren't the prime players behind the tau (assuming any exist) although meddling with the tau for eldar benefit is EXACTLY their style.

But this is all idle speculation and I do like seeing good ideas bandied about (note that this is distinct from aggression and acting like toddlers having a tantrum) so I look forward to seeing where the thread goes.

ImpGuardPanzies wrote:How bout the old ones are said to be dead to protect them. JUST to have fun with this and combine them all. The c'tan are the only ones who know of the survival of the old ones. The old ones showed the c'tan some old technologie and a place to make these products.
AT THE SAME TIME the chaos army is buying into this idea of no more old ones and trys to devise a scheme with the tau. The tau goes along with it to not blow their covor and to learn how to defeat the chaos once and for all. Meanwhile the old ones are coming up with new armors and weaponss that we dont know of yet. THEY USE ALL OF THIS to try and get people to think its all luck, so when people ask they cant find any trails. The imperium needs tau (TAU SAVED THEM ONCE ALREADY FROM TYRNIDS) so they wont start anything. And any other evil force is already aginst tau. The eldar made a seceret deal with the tau to share their physco w.e in exchange for the taus weapons, but the tau decided to thell the eldar of a massive chaos attack being planned aginst them. ??????????????


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we dont know of chaos attack yet. its not in our age yet. And even though it says theres no way to defeat the chaos....thats what it sys. CHAOS ARE EVIL...THEY CAN LIE. or not ewven know thta its possible for them to die

Your joking about the Tau saving the Imperium!! The Imperium could wipe the Tau out in a day if they wanted too. The Tau only have 40 planets look in the codex and only have about the same numbers as the Eldar( a few billion ). Ghazghkull Mag Urul Thraka Waaagh or what the Imperium called the 3rd war of Armageddon would have wiped the Tau.
The only reason the Tau still live is because the Big Boys are on the other side of the galaxy fighting the Imperium

The only reason the Tau still live is because the Big Boys are on the other side of the galaxy fighting the Imperium

Could this be because some other force is protecting them? Why do so many people find this hard to believe.

My main thought is quite simply that unless if somebody has a plan for the Tau... then they're basically pointless. I'd like to think they were included for some reason fluff wise.
The only way I can see the Tau being able to last is if they are backed by something greater than they are, and the Old Ones seem like the most logical (and I think the coolest) choice.

From what I can tell, IF the old ones still exist in any sense (and I think it's generally a bad idea to assume that just because a race is deemed extinct in a science fiction setting that they don't still exist) then they would be the ones most benefitted by the Tau... plus modifying & empowering a race is completely their style.

the tau are asian. that explains everything

starhawks1 wrote:the tau are asian. that explains everything

QFT sigged!