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Mont'au is, as can be read in the Codex, the time of bloody civil war that almost destroyed the Tau race. It was ended with the appearance of the ethereals.

Praising the selfdestructive bloodshed and civil war times as carefree freedom times and ethereals as the killjoys IS either a proof of not knowing the basic fluff OR a sign of deliberate Orwellian newspeak, that would make a PM manager of the weapon industry proud. Civil war and massacring your neighbor is not the epitome of freedom, and peace is no oppression that every decent man has to stand up against.

That said, I don't like it when people want to make tau just another "kill everything on sight" race like every other fraction in 40k, and I came back to 40k because tau HAD a better background than that.

Reworking the idea - it'll be maybe 1-200 years or so ago that the theft occured, giving a bit more time for them to have fleshed out and set up shop as it were.

I havent read the Tau codex, working on aqquiring one right now, working mostly off info flowing through this thread (and others) and what I've gleaned from wikis / lexanicum etc. I imagine my 'initial concept' may well be altered yet again once I get the full book.

And I'm not making them another just kill everything on sight race, more a 'is freedom at the cost of free will really freedom type thing'.

I'm going for a - the Tau appear good, while are more.. very grey, while the Raiders will be more appear bad, while leaning towards 'true freedom'.

Like I said, they might ultimately be delusional it'll all fail and they'll rip themselves apart. But hey - at least they tried right!

That's where we differ: For me the right to massacre your neighbors is not true freedom.
BTW Tau are not mindless drones of the ethereals, Tau society is more based on Asian societies with a different approach to individualism. See also the link on utilitarianism in my sig to see that they aren't commies either.

Not at all...

Should I counter on the same level by adding a Hitler beard to an Emperor portrait?

Tau ideology - Grater Good for all galaxy. All shall be united in a single empire, have rights etc...

Communism - All is for the Grater Good of Mankind. Every person will work, live in free country and have all rights it can...

Sound familiar...?

And Tau are brainwashed by Etherials, just like CSM are with Chaos Gods. Not only that, Etherials divided their race to 4 caster. You can't choose what caste you may be + you are not allowed to breed with member of the other caste. I am just waiting to read about Tau in their free time, to se ewaht kind of civil right they have. Only Farsight is free from their influence, to me he is the only true Tau.

Cerebrium wrote:What about dark orks? Or dark tyranids? How about dark dark eldar?

Would they have more spikes or fewer?

Brother Coa wrote:Tau ideology - Grater Good for all galaxy. All shall be united in a single empire, have rights etc...

Communism - All is for the Grater Good of Mankind. Every person will work, live in free country and have all rights it can...

Sound familiar...?

And Tau are brainwashed by Etherials, just like CSM are with Chaos Gods. Not only that, Etherials divided their race to 4 caster. You can't choose what caste you may be + you are not allowed to breed with member of the other caste. I am just waiting to read about Tau in their free time, to se ewaht kind of civil right they have. Only Farsight is free from their influence, to me he is the only true Tau.

Communism is a sociopolitical movement that aims for a classless and sometimes a stateless society structured upon common ownership of the means of production, free access to articles of consumption, and the end of wage labour and private property in the means of production and real estate.


The Tau have a Caste system( like you mentioned) that breaks the Tau into different classes (Warrior, Diplomat, Ruler, Builder, Pilot), which is what Communism is trying to get away from and end. Right off the bat, the Tau show they are not Communists, because they have a very Rigid Caste System, which goes against the base Idea of Communism.


Edit: However!

Utilitarianism is an ethical theory holding that the proper course of action is the one that maximizes the overall "good" of the greatest number of individuals. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined by its resulting outcome. The most influential contributors to this theory are considered to be Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.

This is what the Tau are all about. The Caste System is for the overall good of the Tau (breeding better warriors/Diplomats/Builders/ect).

Brother coa. If you want to talk about the tau being commies, you might just want to do your own tau are commies thread.

Ovion you might just want to shelve the idea till after you read the codex. It will give you a lot of insight to the tau and what they are like when they are evil.

Brother Coa wrote:Tau ideology - Grater Good for all galaxy. All shall be united in a single empire, have rights etc...

Communism - All is for the Grater Good of Mankind. Every person will work, live in free country and have all rights it can...

Sound familiar...?

And Tau are brainwashed by Etherials, just like CSM are with Chaos Gods. Not only that, Etherials divided their race to 4 caster. You can't choose what caste you may be + you are not allowed to breed with member of the other caste. I am just waiting to read about Tau in their free time, to se ewaht kind of civil right they have. Only Farsight is free from their influence, to me he is the only true Tau.

There are theories that the etherals emit Pheromones making those receptive more or less the perfect little Utilitarians. The caste's are divided based on what each, basically, sub species, is naturally good at. Think, Ogryns and ratlings. Each has a pretty well defined role thanks to its genetic make up.

Farsight without Etherals, shows the ability of the Tau to still work, and not descend into the Mont'ka. Either way, the concept of the greater good could take root within the IoM, and the =I= would have some interestig work ahead of them.

Kroothawk wrote:I'd say: Join the queue. Every second teen starting 40k has the naughty naughty idea of THEEVULZ Tau with spikes and tentacles and thinks he is the first to have this idea. I named this phenomenon the Paladrin syndrome, after WoW, where every second teen made a corrupted Paladin called "Dark Avenger of Death" or something like that. WoW eventually bowed to the demand and made a special epic character class for all those teens, available to all classes, called Death Knight.

So if you feel the need to do Chaos Tau, Chaos Eldar, corrupted Grey Knights, boob themed Sororitas, female Space Marines or any army painted PINK (muahahaha), join the naughty club but be aware that most members are not older than 16

Fail post

Seriously, why are there so much fluff Nazis on Dakka. It’s one of the reasons why I avoid fluff topic on Dakka now. Fluff topics without trolling on dakka are too far and few.

That being said, I don’t see anything wrong with the idea of a renegade Tau faction. Me thinks people are judging the topic on name alone. My recommendations personally would be to have the faction disdain ethereals and focus more on the warlike aspect (even more than Farsight). They could be an early break away faction whose ideologies have slowly but vastly differed from their counter parts over the years. So rather than being another “moustache twirling” evil faction like Chaos or DEldar, they merely reflect the Grim Dark nature of the 40k universe and blur the morality lines more prominently than their counter parts.

I’d reckon “victory at all costs” would be a cool catchphrase for the faction.

I feel like there's some serious potential with this. Perhaps something like a genetically-altered Chaos Ethereal, a Fabulous Bile experiment left to go crazy, giving itself over to Tzeentch and collecting its own piratical Tau retinue. And, of course, mutations abundant.

That's just one of many ideas I'm having. I seriously like this idea. Good work, bro. Good work.

nomotog wrote:Brother coa. If you want to talk about the tau being commies, you might just want to do your own tau are commies thread.

Ovion you might just want to shelve the idea till after you read the codex. It will give you a lot of insight to the tau and what they are like when they are evil.

Good news, I just won a tau empire dex on ebay. (for £4 too)

I'll be focusing on ship/vehicle/unit design for the next 2-5 days till it artives. I've ogled more than enough tau goodies to do that.

I'm going to stick with the imminuty as the core concept as i feel thats a solid way to get tjhe offshoot.

I was toying with the idea of making a tau veteran army, grizzled and battleworn, not fit for going back to civilian life anymore. It would have a much darker feel than the straight out the factory look so many tau armies have, but they wouldn't be evil, well, they wouldn't be the 40k evil of mutations and stupid grins. More like a bunch of mercenaries, viewed as 'evil' by the people they fight for/against.

Why not just make a renegade Ethereal who wants too make his own little empire, the Ethereals control the Tau but I doubt they can control each other.

Toastedandy - The Tau have a caste system. You are born into it and live your whole life into it. So there is no 'civillian' life for Fire caste, just an end to frontline service.

Also, every 4 years of service a Fire Caste warrior faces what is called a Trial by Fire. At the end of the Trial there are one of 2 results. Result number one, the warrior is promoted to his next rank. Result number two, his death serves as an object lesson to others.

So you don't get old Tau warriors, they literally have to get promoted to live.

Jefffar wrote:Toastedandy - The Tau have a caste system. You are born into it and live your whole life into it. So there is no 'civillian' life for Fire caste, just an end to frontline service.

Also, every 4 years of service a Fire Caste warrior faces what is called a Trial by Fire. At the end of the Trial there are one of 2 results. Result number one, the warrior is promoted to his next rank. Result number two, his death serves as an object lesson to others.

So you don't get old Tau warriors, they literally have to get promoted to live.

You do get old tau warriors. After they finish with service, they retire to teach or to join politics. Ex: Puretide was commander during the gulf crusade, but after that he retired to teach.

yevix wrote:Why not just make a renegade Ethereal who wants too make his own little empire, the Ethereals control the Tau but I doubt they can control each other.

Then you get an etherioff where they try to influence each others forces :p

A crazed mutant ethereal with crazed mutant folloewrs left by fabius bile,even if the external effects are minor might make it different enough though.

Bile, or DE Haemies messing with them for giggles.

Tau are still too small and secluded to have some mavericks sans farsight and that wasn't even rebellion. It was more like over zealous rage looking for redemption

see, you say that but look at our own race and planet. Modern humanity is hugely splintered. Numerous societies, peoples and countries, ideologies etc.

And thats 1 planet of 6-7 billion people. Theres such huge variatio here that surely a galactic civilisation has plenty of scope for dissident and variation.

nomotog wrote:

Jefffar wrote:Toastedandy - The Tau have a caste system. You are born into it and live your whole life into it. So there is no 'civillian' life for Fire caste, just an end to frontline service.

Also, every 4 years of service a Fire Caste warrior faces what is called a Trial by Fire. At the end of the Trial there are one of 2 results. Result number one, the warrior is promoted to his next rank. Result number two, his death serves as an object lesson to others.

So you don't get old Tau warriors, they literally have to get promoted to live.

You do get old tau warriors. After they finish with service, they retire to teach or to join politics. Ex: Puretide was commander during the gulf crusade, but after that he retired to teach.

You do, but you don't get to step back from active service as a member of the Fire Caste until you've been a Shas'o for at least 4 years . . . everyone else dies before they reach that point.

Jefffar wrote:
You do, but you don't get to step back from active service as a member of the Fire Caste until you've been a Shas'o for at least 4 years . . . everyone else dies before they reach that point.

When you reach O you decide to retire or lead. "Upon attaining the rank of "O", a member of the Fire Caste may be allowed to retire from active duty and become an advisor to the Tau military's command structure, the Shas'ar'tol. Other than death this is the only way to leave the Tau military"
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Caste_System

Well when Fire Caste only live 30 to 40 years (actually, I dont remember where that info came from, so grain of salt there) and they dont reproduce nearly as fast as humans, it really is surprising that their are as many Tau is there are. Basically, you need to get promoted pretty quick. La, Ui, Vre, El, and O or retirement. With 4 ranks to progress through, it takes 20 years to reach the top, saying Fire Warriors go from Saal to La and start careers at 10 (which I have no fluff basis for, just seemed like a number the Tau would pick, being all 1 and 0 together and what not.) then if they get promoted as soon as possible they become eligible for retirement at 30. 25% of life in retirement sounds about right to me, but then again they all end up going to be advisers or tactical teachers, so how retired are they really?

Ovion wrote:A crazed mutant ethereal with crazed mutant folloewrs left by fabius bile,even if the external effects are minor might make it different enough though.

All sources say, that ethereals are totally 100% immune to chaos corruption. Only on non-ethereals there are different opinions. Read the novel Fire Warrior if you are interested in details.

Jefffar wrote:Toastedandy - The Tau have a caste system. You are born into it and live your whole life into it. So there is no 'civillian' life for Fire caste, just an end to frontline service.

Also, every 4 years of service a Fire Caste warrior faces what is called a Trial by Fire. At the end of the Trial there are one of 2 results. Result number one, the warrior is promoted to his next rank. Result number two, his death serves as an object lesson to others.

So you don't get old Tau warriors, they literally have to get promoted to live.

Source? Or did you make that up?

"Provided the warrior survives 4 years of active duty, he undergoes the first Trial by Fire, which can be anything from mere gladiatorial affairs to trial by constant combat. If the Shas'la survives his first Trial by Fire, he is promoted to the rank of Shas'ui, or Veteran. For every consecutive four years of service, the Fire Warrior undergoes another Trial. The higher one's rank within the Fire Caste, the more likely one is to be a Battlesuit pilot. Upon attaining the rank of "O", a member of the Fire Caste may be allowed to retire from active duty and become an advisor to the Tau military's command structure, the Shas'ar'tol. Other than death this is the only way to leave the Tau military."

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Caste_System
Cites the 3rd edition codex

Kroothawk wrote:

Ovion wrote:A crazed mutant ethereal with crazed mutant folloewrs left by fabius bile,even if the external effects are minor might make it different enough though.

All sources say, that ethereals are totally 100% immune to chaos corruption. Only on non-ethereals there are different opinions. Read the novel Fire Warrior if you are interested in details.

Normal ethereals, sure, but mutant ethereals with warp presence sounds plausible.

Etherals were designed, specifically to not fall to chaos.
The Slaan make the Eldar who make the Etherals. Boom. Blew your mind.

The Eldar had so much trouble with that whole chaos thing they designed the Etherals to fix that up for them.

KilroyKiljoy wrote:

Kroothawk wrote:

Ovion wrote:A crazed mutant ethereal with crazed mutant folloewrs left by fabius bile,even if the external effects are minor might make it different enough though.

All sources say, that ethereals are totally 100% immune to chaos corruption. Only on non-ethereals there are different opinions. Read the novel Fire Warrior if you are interested in details.

Normal ethereals, sure, but mutant ethereals with warp presence sounds plausible.

And since when when genetic manipulation the same as chaos?

It could be a genetic manipulation to increase susceptibility to the influences of the warp. But I think that one would have been countered with a, mix up this dna, get a big old pile of etheral goo instead of walking talking etheral.

CpatTom wrote:It could be a genetic manipulation to increase susceptibility to the influences of the warp. But I think that one would have been countered with a, mix up this dna, get a big old pile of etheral goo instead of walking talking etheral.

I think Fabulous Bile could pull it off. He's cloned himself, Horus, and others multiple times over and over again. Sure, it probably wouldn't work the first time, but he'd get it on #3 or something. Also, I'd imagine the ethereal to look drastically different.

Kroothawk wrote:

Ovion wrote:A crazed mutant ethereal with crazed mutant folloewrs left by fabius bile,even if the external effects are minor might make it different enough though.

All sources say, that ethereals are totally 100% immune to chaos corruption. Only on non-ethereals there are different opinions. Read the novel Fire Warrior if you are interested in details.

Neither the Haemonculi nor Fabius Bile 'corrupt' their subjects using chaos or psyhic powers.
Both utilise perverse surgery, genetic manipulation, chemicals and torture to corrupt and mutate, and it has been shown that LOTS of tau have been caught under both the haemies and biles knife.

Geneticly modified, chemically warped or chimera like tau could feasibly be linked to a single twisted ethereal, or an ethereal could be supercharged and driven insane and Bile especially has a habit of just.. Abandoning his 'experiments' once he's done / got bored of that one.