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Eetion, you have completely missed my point.

The horrific realization of the defector is that living under the Tau is also awful -- not that he had it better under the Imperium. It would be a kind of terrible that he hadn't foreseen ...

... because he thought of the Tau as reasonable humans with funny blue faces ...

... and he thought the Imperial authorities were unreasonable humans with regular faces.

But as it turns out, whether the Tau are reasonable on Tau terms or not is completely immaterial. Because Tau reasonability is just not the same thing as what it means to be reasonable to a human.

The Tau doing the torturing in my fiction can't understand why the human won't just cooperate. And the human being tortured can't even imagine why he's being punished. That's what an "alien point of view" means. The human mind and the Tau mind will never be able to meet because we are aliens to each other.

It takes a special kind of idiocy to prefer a bad life over a somewhat better one just because your opressors in the first case are human.
As an ideology the Greater Good is actualy quite logical, at least compared to what the Imperium offers. All work for a common goal so that all can profit.
That the Tau aren't knights in shining armour is quite clear, but for many people they still offer a better life than they could have in the Imperium of Man.
If i had to chose between a society which considers ignorance and strict dogmatism to be virtues and one which doesn't, then i would always chose the later.


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 Manchu wrote:

The Tau doing the torturing in my fiction can't understand why the human won't just cooperate. And the human being tortured can't even imagine why he's being punished. That's what an "alien point of view" means. The human mind and the Tau mind will never be able to meet because we are aliens to each other.

Except that we aren't. Like it or not, almost all aliens in 40k are barely more than humans with grey faces/ pointy ears or a green skin

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
Civilized worlds form most of the Imperium's worlds. Those worlds you mention are exceptions as much as Ultramar's worlds are, if not more so, since the Ultramarines and their descendants supposedly form three-fifths of all Chapters, and they all follow Ultramar's example. So yes, Astartes realms in general aren't so bad. As for serving the Emperor and die light-years away from home, sorry, but that's what it means to be part of something greater than yourself. The sacrifice of heroes such as they keep Mankind alive. I'd love to see the Tau negotiate and talk some sense into the Forces of Chaos, the Eldar, the Dark Eldar, and the Orks. Then there's the Tyranids. And the Necrons. That should be something to see

I know the blood raven worlds are a complete mess. Ultramar is the exception rather then the rule in the IoM. In the tau empire, Ultramar would be the rule. If you think the IoM is a nice happy place to live, then that's why your confused.

There are lots of reasons to join the tau that people have mentioned, but I'll drop a few people haven't talked about yet. One is that you got to join something. The average planet would have a hard time surviving without being part of a empire. When the IoM isn't available you got to pick someone else someone who isn't ,always, trying to eat you. Another thing I have noticed is that a some people are just looking to get back at the IoM, so they use the GG as there justification and weapon supply.

 Arcsquad12 wrote:
If you want to see the ideologies of the Tau Empire and how they clash with the Imperium, there is always this piece of manliness.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrHhS5IkRR0

Joining the Tau Empire is essentially trading one form of dictatorship for another, the difference being the ideologies. Fascism and Communism at their furthest extremes are both different takes on social control by individuals at the top.

Except that Communism still clings to the belief that all are equal under the same banner.

The Tau aren't really Communist at all.

They're just a different kind of fascism, lol.

 Manchu wrote:
So first off, design notes on the Tau are not relevant to this discussion. Whatever the studio employee originally sought to create is one thing; what the Tau have been presented as ever since is quite another.

Nonsense. If the creator of the race says what the concept of said race is, this is not irrelevant at all. It is a nice proof that all those "Tau are just as evil as IOM" don't know what they are talking about. Even if they write some fan fiction based on their beliefs. Even if some background changed during time, doesn't mean that everything "obviously" changed into its opposite without any proof.

Most novels (not many up to now) and the BFG rules are based on this original concept.
Farsight and his pupil Brightsword are the massacre happy faction of Tau but expelled/sacked for their behavior, further supporting the original concept. Only one paragraph in 4th edition Codex contradicts it (that one about threatening planets when not joining), but it stands in clear contrast to all other texts.

DW texts talk about human led outer parts of the Tau Empire, so whatever is vaguely implied there, may not be part of official Tau policy. And for game mechanics you need evil enemies of Deathwatch there, so you have to feed the players something, because "destroy a perfectly harmonic society" is not a good assignment for a gaming group.

Concerning being aliens: All 40k races are developed by humans, using human concepts. Strong influences for Tau are WW2 Japan (combined with other Asian cultures), Mechas, Utilitarianism (The Greater Good http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism ) plus the look of Grey Aliens. The concept that working together is better than killing each other, may sound alien to some, but I find it reasonable beyond species boundaries.

Communism is no influence. People claiming that use the word in the sense a typical Redneck uses it: "We defend the right of every American to buy Assault rifles, otherwise the USA would become communist!" (acual recent quote, quoted from memory)

BFG rules wrote:As the Tau Empire expands out from its homeworld, the Tau inevitably encounter new races previously unknown to them, and to each of these an offer of allegiance is made. There are many aggressive, arrogant and selfish races in the galaxy, however, and even the Tau often find first contact results in nothing more than yet another bloody war. There are other races however, who readily accept the message of the greater good and take up their place in the Tau Empire. Some of these races are small, perhaps located on just a single world, or else primitive with little useful resource to offer the Tau, in which case their accession to the Empire is simply a formality, with the benevolent Tau offering protection to these lesser races while they can expect little other than appreciation and friendship in return.

Other additions to the Empire are advanced in themselves, and the union of two such cultures provides valuable new knowledge, technology and understanding for both parties. Such races, where able, fulfil their debt to the Tau Empire by a series of tithes which suit their own particular abilities. Able craftsmen, for instance, may be called upon to provide manufacturing capacity, while aggressive or warlike races will be obligated to provide troops to the armies of the Tau. There are other races still who do not wish to fully submit to the Empire, but who likewise have no wish for war with the Tau and will instead strike up armistices or treaties of neutrality, opening up lucrative new markets or providing new allegiances for mutual protection. Such races are also likely to hire themselves out as mercenaries to the Tau Empire when the opportunity arises.

 KingDeath wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
The Tau doing the torturing in my fiction can't understand why the human won't just cooperate. And the human being tortured can't even imagine why he's being punished. That's what an "alien point of view" means. The human mind and the Tau mind will never be able to meet because we are aliens to each other.

Except that we aren't. Like it or not, almost all aliens in 40k are barely more than humans with grey faces/ pointy ears or a green skin

You're thinking of Star Trek. The opposite is true in Warhammer 40k.

The biggest problem with the tau is that everyone assumes they are the same everywhere. They leave no room for one planet to be different then another, or for one administrator to operate differently then another. This is mostly a problem with the fans, the codex makes it quite clear that different septs have different personalities and that there is room for verity.

Manchu - mind telling me where you find a single reference to the fact tau mistreat humans who do not directly fight them in any way?

Or maybe a contradiction to the fact they OPENLY ALLOW the humans in their empire to worship the emperor if they choose to (or not, if they don't want to)


Point is, the Tau empire is relatively a free place. its not a modern democracy, but not the grimdark nazi-overtone IoM, who are the next best thing around.

Besides, most humans under the empire are not even directly controlled by tau, the "tau empire" has a misleading name, as it works more like a coalition of nation under the guidance of the ethreals then an actual empire, in fact while most everyone listens to the ethereals-they are by no means bound by law to do so if they don't feel like it! the ethereals official status are "advisors" that act only on the coalition level and ensure the different castes cooperate properly, while each is completely independent in his own organisational level, command structure and actions.
Also, by fluff, any member of a non-tau race of the empire can raise in the ranks of his own quashi-caste organisation (or the humans for example you got the Gue'vesa ranks, who have their own 'la, 'ui, 'vre 'el and maybe even 'o ranks.)

As officially stated by GW multiple times, a human in the tau empire has all the equal legal rights as any other race, just like any human "race" in america got the same rights-some discrimination may show up here and there, but its against the official standing and caused from personal issues rather then governmental ones, the type who naturally go away with generations.

 Manchu wrote:

 KingDeath wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
The Tau doing the torturing in my fiction can't understand why the human won't just cooperate. And the human being tortured can't even imagine why he's being punished. That's what an "alien point of view" means. The human mind and the Tau mind will never be able to meet because we are aliens to each other.

Except that we aren't. Like it or not, almost all aliens in 40k are barely more than humans with grey faces/ pointy ears or a green skin

You're thinking of Star Trek. The opposite is true in Warhammer 40k.

Nope, not realy. Almost all playable species have the same basic concepts ( which is one of the reasons why communication is at all possible ), sometimes they are exagerations of human behaviour and sometimes they are exagerations of pretty common tropes. There are no truly alien ( that is, incomprehensible ) points of views in 40k ( unless we unclude the various denizens of the warp ), at best we have different cultures and at worst we have stereotypes.

 Manchu wrote:
So first off, design notes on the Tau are not relevant to this discussion. Whatever the studio employee originally sought to create is one thing; what the Tau have been presented as ever since is quite another.

The Tau are imperialists. They see their own ways as the most rational and therefore expect any sentient beings capable of reason to accept them. Of course, by "their ways" we don't mean "love and happiness and kindness" we mean "bow to the absolute authority of the Ethereals in a stratified society."

In the sense of what the top-down model of authority demands on the individual, the Tau Empire is just the Imperium painted in lighter shades of grey. Because they speak to a larger demographic, the Tau seem to take greater pains with their marketing (read: propaganda) efforts. This also means that there is a more general need for secret police in Tau society. In the DW sourcebooks, you will see that gue'vesa that don't march along "disappear." In the Imperium, dissenters are just shot in the face -- ideally in front of
other dissenters.

The only significant difference between the Imperium and the Tau is that the Tau believe their values are not species-specific. If we take the Tau fluff at face value, leaving all conspiracy theories about mind control by the wayside, the Tau seem to believe that their ideals are universal and not in any way contingent on their own history, culture, biology, etc. The Imperium, by contrast, believes that (1) only humans can understand and are subject to human values, (2) human values are the only values that matter, and (3) because aliens cannot share human values, they will inevitably and naturally oppose them.

So the difference is that the Tau want to rule the galaxy by ruling all other sentient races and destroying any race that will not bow to them. The Imperium generally believes the only way humans can rule the galaxy at all is by eliminating all other races.

I think this is about right. The imperium is Stalin's Russia to an extreme where the Tau are China in the extreme where one will make an example of a troublemaker where the other will make sure he disappears and the glorious order of "the greater good" not disrupted.

As an aside I swear I remember reading that the ethereals don't just exert their influence over the other Tau but also other races as well.

 Kroothawk wrote:
If the creator of the race says what the concept of said race is, this is not irrelevant at all.

No special rights attach to creators unless the creators maintain control over the concept. As Siegel and Shuster created him, Superman could not fly. You can post reminiscences of Siegel and Shuster or panels from Action Comics Vol. 1. No. 1 all you like -- it doesn't change the fact that Superman can fly.

 Kroothawk wrote:
DW texts talk about human led outer parts of the Tau Empire, so whatever is vaguely implied there, may not be part of official Tau policy.

That's an excuse, not an argument. Nothing in the DW books says "these Tau represent all Tau" or "these are special Tau." Even if we assume these Tau are different, what is actually different about them? They are at the periphery, the frontier of their empire, rather than at the center. And thus they are in closer contact with species not already totally under their sway. Therefore, even if these "Tau are special," they are special only in these sense of being representative of how the Tau treat populations of species that do not submit to them. There is therefore no reason to believe that they act differently than other Tau regarding human populations. The DW text is perfectly on-point and cannot be hand-waived away by saying "well, that's in such-and-such book." I suppose I could do the same with any example of the Tau showing compassion that you might give -- which I note, you seem to have none.

 Kroothawk wrote:
And for game mechanics you need evil enemies of Deathwatch there, so you have to feed the players something, because "destroy a perfectly harmonic society" is not a good assignment for a gaming group.

That's a preposterous argument. 40k does not rely on its protagonists being pure and wonderful. DW fight Tau not because Tau are evil but because they are aliens.

 Kroothawk wrote:
The concept that working together is better than killing each other, may sound alien to some, but I find it reasonable beyond species boundaries.

Working together is better than killing each other IF you assume working together without killing each other is possible. If it is not possible, then it's better to skip the pleasantries. That's the Imperial position. Also, it appears in 40k that it is largely not possible to work together without killing each other. Some people say that the Tau preach this message as ethical cover for the destruction of races that will not bow to them. Now I prefer to think of the Tau as naive rather than evil. I prefer to think that they simply don't realize the truth of 40k that aliens cannot really be friends, at least not in the long term (the Tau have a very short viewpoint due to their short life lifespans and their short history). I prefer to think of the Tau as not using the Greater Good as an excuse to slay their enemies but rather that they truly regret "being forced" to do so. And I think all the published fluff supports these preferences.

BUT there's still the little problem that, regardless of what the naive Tau think of themselves and other species, the TRUTH of the setting is that "there is only war." Species cannot really get along if for no other reason than by their very nature they refuse to do so (in this way, humans must seem similar Orks and Tyranids to Tau eyes). The TRUTH of the setting is that alien minds are truly, really alien. Aliens are not just humans in make-up. They are truly different on the outside and on the inside. So Orks don't fight for territory or control of the galaxy, but just to fight -- which seems totally unreasonable to humans. It seems totally reasonable to Orks, however. And we call them "dumb" or "brutish" because of this. Perhaps the Tau represent a critique of the human (stereotypically "Western") disinclination to cooperate at the expense of identity. Whether or not the Tau are "right" regarding other species, like the Kroot, has no bearing on whether they are right regarding humanity.

And if they are wrong about us, if we cannot ever truly accept the Greater Good, then what will they "be forced to do"? They will be forced to either eliminate or enslave us -- which nicely fits into Imperial propaganda. Welcome to the GrimDark.

 Kroothawk wrote:
Communism is no influence. People claiming that use the word in the sense a typical Redneck uses it: "We defend the right of every American to buy Assault rifles, otherwise the USA would become communist!"

I 100% agree with you there.


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 KingDeath wrote:
There are no truly alien ( that is, incomprehensible ) points of views in 40k ( unless we unclude the various denizens of the warp ), at best we have different cultures and at worst we have stereotypes.

You can look at it at two levels: inside-the-setting and outside-the-setting. Outside-the-setting, there are no aliens. These are all fictional concepts that derive from human brains. The human brain cannot conceive of what it cannot conceive of. Simple.

Now, to the subject at hand -- the human brain can conceive of an inconceivable thing. We can posit that there are things that we cannot know regardless of our ability to know them. Inside-the-setting, aliens are really aliens. Inside-the-setting, the Orks don't fight all the time because they are a humorous cartoon of Eastender football hooligans. The do it because they are aliens. And inside-the-setting, humans will always find that irrational while Orks see it as perfectly rational.

Kroothawk wrote:If the creator of the race says what the concept of said race is, this is not irrelevant at all.

That's how I see it as well. Fans may debate how something in the fluff should be interpreted, but designer's notes are (usually) an excellent way to clear up confusion about what the authors intended to convey, essentially establishing which of the squabbling readers "got it" and who didn't. Personal preferences and things we read elsewhere are very likely to cloud our judgment of other material, so anything that clarifies points of contention is good, imho. It's almost as helpful as having the author himself contribute to the discussion.

buddha wrote:As an aside I swear I remember reading that the ethereals don't just exert their influence over the other Tau but also other races as well.

Xenology, perhaps? I recall its author came up with something about Ethereal mind control in there, though I'd have to re-read the book for details.

That being said, this too is just one of many different interpretations, and apparently not what the studio tried to do. It is thus not surprising that, depending on which product you read, you will get a different answer to this question. FFG's Deathwatch RPG, for example, has the Inquisition find zero indication for any mind control when studying and dissecting an Ethereal, much to the puzzlement of the thoroughly indoctrinated humans.

Do Ethereals practice mind control, or do they not? Apparently GW said no, but if you think the alternative is more interesting, you are at liberty to roll with Xenology's implications, just like some other licensed products will have. In Dawn of War, for example, the Tau were not that friendly either.

one reason. It's Preferrable To the Alternative.

Ok, two main reasons, really:

1) They were POWs and chose citizenship over an internment camp

2) They were dirt-scratching substinence farmers and chose useful help over overbearing oppression, outrageous abuses of power, and the general grim-dark plight of most humans in the imperium. basicaly some sexy water-caste told them of a better way, and they bought it.

 Lynata wrote:
Fans may debate how something in the fluff should be interpreted, but designer's notes are (usually) an excellent way to clear up confusion about what the authors intended to convey, essentially establishing which of the squabbling readers "got it" and who didn't.

You're ignoring that this is necessarily a recursive process. Even looking at the creator's intentions regarding the concept, the fan still has to look at the concept itself and judge whether the concept has changed significantly in relation to the intentions. Design notes don't tell us where the concept has ended up; they just tell us where the concept started.

 Lynata wrote:
Do Ethereals practice mind control, or do they not? Apparently GW said no, but if you think the alternative is more interesting, you are at liberty to roll with Xenology's implications, just like some other licensed products will have. In Dawn of War, for example, the Tau were not that friendly either.

It's actually simpler than that. Xenonology is written from an in-universe perspective. It is an Imperial view of the Tau. What we know from that book is that one Imperial subject concluded the Tau must be mind-controlled by their masters. The question is not "is this how the Tau really are?" but rather "why does the Imperial mind draw that conclusion?" Perhaps the Imperial perspective is incapable of attributing Tau behavior to voluntary cooperation. In other words, perhaps Xenology is yet another one of the many knowing critiques of the in-universe perspective.

GW still has control of its Tau concept. And the concept still stands.
You writing fan fiction (or rather hater fiction) showing Tau as torturers doesn't change that as it is far from any official position. Nor does a change in superman background.

My point in DW is that there are no Tau making the decisions, I only found humans making the decisions. And we know that 40k humans can be naughty. the Tau Empire is not centralistic, you know, so planets can make autonomous decisions.

Concerning Xenology: DW is actively mocking the views of Xenology, as it features an ethereal in human captivity having no olfactory gland at all. Conclusion by DW: Those Tau bastards must have send a genetically manipulated ethereal just to hide the truth

Anyway, we will know for certain in 3 months, when two more Tau novels and the new Codex will be released.

GW didn't create the Tau. GW is a company, not a person. As a company, it can write checks and enter contracts and own IP. But it cannot create concepts. A person created the concept of the Tau. Is that person still in charge of developing the concept? Has that person always been in charge of developing the concept? Even if that was the case, which it is obviously not, has that person never changed their mind?

My little fiction was just an example of what might be going on in the Tau dungeons mentioned in DW. DW does not come right out and say that human dissenters are tortured or even killed. All we know is they are never seen again and the Tau require that person's friends and family to pretend that they never existed. Not exactly the utopia human defectors from the Imperium might expect! Is it better than the Imperium? Like I said, the Imperium shoots dissenters in the face in public. The Tau make you "disappear." I don't think we can meaningfully say which is worse. We can just say they are bad in their different ways. And that at least with the Imperium, you can have a clear idea of the society's values. This is probably impossible regarding alien values in 40k because they are alien values.

Manchu wrote:You're ignoring that this is necessarily a recursive process. Even looking at the creator's intentions regarding the concept, the fan still has to look at the concept itself and judge whether the concept has changed significantly in relation to the intentions. Design notes don't tell us where the concept has ended up; they just tell us where the concept started.

You are ignoring that this process is effected by each fan individually, meaning that people may draw different conclusions from reading the same material. If a common ground is sought - as is usually the case with fluff debates - it would thus help to have the original writer clarify the point of contention. After all, how a concept develops in a fan's mind is not something that any singular writer or a singular book has any control over. By the very nature of how the franchise is run, different products will promote different interpretations of a certain topic, even where people read one and the same paragraph, all depending on how their bias has been formed.

... can we say "bias"? It does not feel right, yet a better word does not spring to mind.

 Lynata wrote:
Anyways, I won't go any more into this than that. We know where that would otherwise lead to with the two of us.

Ironically, that is a matter of perspective. You would say, a waste of time. I would say, a productive and illuminating discussion.

 Lynata wrote:
You are ignoring that this process is effected by each fan individually, meaning that people may draw different conclusions from reading the same material. If a common ground is sought - as is usually the case with fluff debates - it would thus help to have the original writer clarify the point of contention.

You are right about this, I have to admit. My apologies to Kroothawk. The creators' intentions are relevant -- but they are not determinative. On this matter, the creators wanted to present the Tau as "believing heartily in unification as the way forward." Does this prevent them from engaging in war? No. We know that from the fluff but we can also know it as a matter of logic. The fight wars to unify the galaxy -- on their terms, under their masters, according to their philosophy. They were intended to be "idealistic and altruistic." Again, fine. Does this prevent them from committing genocide and torture? I think not. I can't give an example from the fluff but I can use logic -- if unification is so important -- and we are of course talking about unification from their viewpoint -- then what happens to those who refuse to unify? What happens to those who refuse outside of battle?

It defines their theme. and that seems to be where your going off the rails. You seem to have made up your own theme of oppression and use that to color everything in a different light.

Like If I told you about the the tau have education camp in orbit around a planet, you would picture something like room 44, but it's orbiting a planet of cavemen that they use as engineers, so it's actually a camp about education.

Because the grass is always greener on the other side.

Also when someone's pointing a railgun at your head, you usually do what they say.

nomotog wrote:
It defines their theme.

No, it's just part of their theme. The other part is imperialism. The Tau aren't just alturistic -- there is also the issue that they will kill you if you refuse to be altruistic like them.


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 Shadowclaimer wrote:
Because the grass is always greener on the other side.

I think this is a VERY big part of why Imperials defect. I think they're in for a nasty shock when they look back over the fence at the green grass of the Imperium.

Mod Kilkrazy wrote:Using images to inflame an argument is not helpful

Remember people, back up your evidence with well, actual evidence, don't be like some people on this forum and write bs based entirely on conjecture and what you think is true, write what IS true; if its conjecture, then say its conjecture.

@PresidentofAsia: You might want to rethink posting that image.

The dialog was just a clarification, a part of an argument. I did not represent it as part of a published source. If you think Tau aren't willing to use violence to achieve their goals then please tell me why they have a codex and models.

We are talking about a fictional background set 38,000 years in the future in which space elves use space magic to fight magic space orcs and a dead magic space emperor rules the galaxy from a magic space throne.

Extensive original sources do not exist for Tau, who are the least well documented faction. In any case, GW have characterised the fluff as a contradictory, confused, mixture of history. legend, lies and propaganda.

We do what we can with what we have, including logic and a few reasonable rules of thumb. We know the Tau see unity as a justification for conquest. They do not shirk from violence. Being naive has not made them weak or cowardly -- quite the reverse. And there is no reason to believe that the same does not apply internally. It would be nice to have more information on them and we will get some early this year, first with the new Cain novel (although Cain himself is totally untrustworthy so that will be of dubious worth) and then with Fire Caste in March. As it stands, we do know from DW that the Tau deal with subjugated human dissenters by making them disappear and forcing their friends and families to pretend the disappeared party never existed. So that tarnishes their good guy image a bit. My contention is that they're not good guys -- they're just who they are, idealistic and violent aliens.

 Manchu wrote:

nomotog wrote:
It defines their theme.

No, it's just part of their theme. The other part is imperialism. The Tau aren't just alturistic -- there is also the issue that they will kill you if you refuse to be altruistic like them.

That's not part of their theme more something that they do. The theme of tau is quite simple. High tech friendly blue people. It's stated first it's stated most. You just trying to apply your own theme that that mutates all aspects into something different then intended.

 Manchu wrote:
We do what we can with what we have, including logic and a few reasonable rules of thumb. We know the Tau see unity as a justification for conquest. They do not shirk from violence. Being naive has not made them weak or cowardly -- quite the reverse. And there is no reason to believe that the same does not apply internally. It would be nice to have more information on them and we will get some early this year, first with the new Cain novel (although Cain himself is totally untrustworthy so that will be of dubious worth) and then with Fire Caste in March. As it stands, we do know from DW that the Tau deal with subjugated human dissenters by making them disappear and forcing their friends and families to pretend the disappeared party never existed. So that tarnishes their good guy image a bit. My contention is that they're not good guys -- they're just who they are, idealistic and violent aliens.

The Taros Campaign by Forgeworld mentions specifically Shas'o R'myr removing a friendly Tau governor from power and destroying their Imperial sector, and then shutting down the whole world and putting it in martial law just because the Imperial Guard were on their way. I know FW =/= GW, but its still an interesting note.

I like to think of Tau as varied like humans, there are normal anime fan space communists, then there's the Joseph Stalin Variant I love.

nomotog wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

nomotog wrote:
It defines their theme.

No, it's just part of their theme. The other part is imperialism. The Tau aren't just alturistic -- there is also the issue that they will kill you if you refuse to be altruistic like them.

That's not part of their theme more something that they do. The theme of tau is quite simple. High tech friendly blue people. It's stated first it's stated most. You just trying to apply your own theme that that mutates all aspects into something different then intended.

No, imperialism is part of the Tau theme. That is why their codex is now called "TAU EMPIRE." That is why they have client races like the Kroot and Vespids. That is why their history is defined by expansion phases. That is their motivation for fighting anything more than defensive battles.

They are not high tech friendly blue people. They are high tech blue conquerors. They prefer to conquer efficiently. Just wiping out another race is not their first tactic, unlike the Imperium. That doesn't make them nice.

 Shadowclaimer wrote:
I know FW =/= GW

Doesn't bother me a bit. Good reference.

 Manchu wrote:

nomotog wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

nomotog wrote:
It defines their theme.

No, it's just part of their theme. The other part is imperialism. The Tau aren't just alturistic -- there is also the issue that they will kill you if you refuse to be altruistic like them.

That's not part of their theme more something that they do. The theme of tau is quite simple. High tech friendly blue people. It's stated first it's stated most. You just trying to apply your own theme that that mutates all aspects into something different then intended.

No, imperialism is part of the Tau theme. That is why their codex is now called "TAU EMPIRE." That is why they have client races like the Kroot and Vespids. That is why they history is defined by expansion phases. That is their motivation for fighting anything more than defensive battles.

They are not high tech friendly blue people. They are high tech blue conquerors. They prefer to conquer efficiently. Just wiping out another race is not their first tactic, unlike the Imperium. That doesn't make them nice.

And there is the rub. You see the tau as high tech blue conquerors. I'm not going to call your view wrong mostly because I would like it if we could find space for both. Just that's more something you made up then something that's out right intended.

Off hand. I can only recall one offensive war by the tau. It was by bright sword I believe.

nomotog wrote:
I'm not going to call your view wrong mostly because I would like it if we could find space for both. Just that's more something you made up then something that's out right intended.

You can call me wrong, it won't hurt my feelings. What I would like is an argument why I am wrong. But I would like you to read the Tau Empire dex -- or at least Lexicanum -- before doing so.