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 Manchu wrote:
I am not saying that they have done so. My point is that they could do so. There is nothing about the Caste system that makes it impossible to apply to, for example, humans.

The problem with that is what little we do know about the Tau suggests that as long as you align yourself with them and don't try to back stab them, they cut a fair deal. From what little data we do have, on Tau aligned human worlds they don't even replace the government usually, unless they try to betray them or prove too inept. As far as is known, none of the human worlds that went over to the Tau previous to the Damocles Gulf Crusade had the governments replaced other than by the Imperium.

I think the real reason that most humans would prefer to live in the tau empire is simple. Humans under the tau are not bound by castes. (No evidence exists that I have been able to find that suggests that they are forced to live in a caste based system) What has been implied is that aliens (humans included) in the tau empire work under a meritocracy. For humans living under the Imperium, this is probably the best deal they've ever heard of, as, remember, by and large (there are exceptions) the Imperium is a Feudal State. What the Tau are offering is as close to the freedom to live their own lives as most Imperial subjects can imagine (Without embracing the Ruinous Powers).

Plus the Tau's extensive use of automation means far less drudgery.

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:
Yes there is. You have to be born into the Caste. Only Tau are born into the Caste.

The first members of the Castes were not born into them. There was a point when Tau existed and the Caste system didn't, you know. The Ethereals applied the Caste system to them. They could apply it to others.

nomotog wrote:
If there there is no proof and all you say say is we don't know, then why are you saying it at all?

Because Kroothawk was arguing that the Tau don't rule directly over other races. One part of his argument was that they have never even tried to introduce the Caste system on other races. You've been here this whole time.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BaronIveagh wrote:
As far as is known, none of the human worlds that went over to the Tau previous to the Damocles Gulf Crusade had the governments replaced other than by the Imperium.

We don't have information, beyond a few sentences, about the experience of humans with the Tau preceding that campaign. We have more information from the DW Corebook, which says the Tau directly rule a small group of humans who are the most loyal to the Greater Good and in turn those humans rule the rest of the humans.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
What has been implied is that aliens (humans included) in the tau empire work under a meritocracy.

Could you point me to where you read this? All I can find is in the aforementioned DW Corebook, which says that the Tau favor humans that are the most loyal to them. I guess that could be called a meritocracy, as long as the defining skill was sucking up to the Tau.

But the caste system didn't come out of nowhere. There were four distinct groups of Tau before. The Etherals just told them "no interbreeding" then labelled it "The Caste system".

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:
The Etherals just told them "no interbreeding" then labelled it "The Caste system".

Nope. The Caste system is a social organization principle that promotes cooperation and prevents conflict. There is a superficial resemblance between the tribes of old and the Caste system introduced by the Ethereals. But they are not the same. For one thing, the formation of the Tau tribes was natural and not planned. For another thing, the tribal system led to the Mont'au while the Caste system leads to the Greater Good.

 Manchu wrote:
.

nomotog wrote:
If there there is no proof and all you say say is we don't know, then why are you saying it at all?

Because Kroothawk was arguing that the Tau don't rule directly over other races. One part of his argument was that they have never even tried to introduce the Caste system on other races. You've been here this whole time.

Some times these threads become hard to follow. Like when they go 10 pages in 2 days.

nomotog wrote:
Some times these threads become hard to follow. Like when they go 10 pages in 2 days.

I don't mind catching you up as long as you are making an effort. That's why I posted the pages and quotes you requested -- but so far no response from you on that issue.

 Manchu wrote:

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:
The Etherals just told them "no interbreeding" then labelled it "The Caste system".

Nope. The Caste system is a social organization principle that promotes cooperation and prevents conflict. There is a superficial resemblance between the tribes of old and the Caste system introduced by the Ethereals. For one thing, the formation of the Tau tribes was natural and not planned. For another thing, the tribal system led to the Mont'au while the Caste system leads to the Greater Good.

Sorry Manchu you don't get to say "nope" on that one. The Castes are directly formed from the old tribes/sub-species. That's the point.

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:
The Castes are directly formed from the old tribes/sub-species.

Like I said, there is a superficial resemblance. But the fact remains that Caste is primarily a division of labor. People who are good at X were organized into a caste that is responsible for doing X. The tribe system obviously was different. For example, only the Fire Caste are warriors under the Caste system. The plains tribe that the Fire Caste was built on were not the only warriors during the Mont'au. We know this because the Mont'au was all about war -- there had to have been warriors among the other tribes. Thus the tribes were not based on division of labor but rather division of culture and lifestyle. The Caste system is much more rigid.

 Manchu wrote:

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:
The Castes are directly formed from the old tribes/sub-species.

Like I said, there is a superficial resemblance. But the fact remains that Caste is primarily a division of labor. People who are good at X were organized into a class that is responsible for doing X. The tribe system obviously was different. For example, only the Fire Caste are warriors under the Caste system. The plains tribe that the Fire Caste was built on were not the only warriors during the Mont'au. We know this because the Mont'au was all about war -- there had to have been warriors among the other tribes. Thus the tribes were not based on division of labor but rather division of culture and lifestyle. The Caste system is much more rigid.

Yes everyone that was a plains tribe is now fire caste and no one that was not is not. Everyone that was of the mountain tribe is now Air caste and no one who was not is not. Ditto on the other two.
Obviously the Caste system is more rigid, that's the point. That's why there's no Vespid Water caste.

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:
Yes everyone that was a plains tribe is now fire caste and no one that was not is not. Everyone that was of the mountain tribe is now Air caste and no one who was not is not. Ditto on the other two. Obviously the Caste system is more rigid, that's the point. That's why there's no Vespid Water caste.

No, that's not the point. The point is division of labor. When the Earth Caste was created, all of the city Tau who had been warrriors had to STOP being warriors and START being something else. And all the the plains Tau who had not been warriors had to become warriors when the Fire Caste was created. We could do the same with a human population: take this group of people and let them do nothing but be soldiers; take that group of people and let them do nothing but trade and diplomacy, etc. There is no reason why the Caste system couldn't apply to races other than the Tau.

There is no advantage to that. From The Etherals point of view the four tribes had natural aptitudes they wanted to exploit. They see aliens in a similiar manner but not in a sub-divided way.

There is plenty of advantage to division of labor. For one thing, it got the Tau to stop fighting each other. The Mont'au ended and the Tau became a much more powerful and prosperous people. The Ethereals saw the wasteful way the tribes all prepared for a useless war against each other and proposed something different: the Caste system.

Again, the argument here is not that the Tau do force other races into the Caste system. The argument is that the Caste system could be applied to them.

 Manchu wrote:
We don't have information, beyond a few sentences, about the experience of humans with the Tau preceding that campaign.

Um, Manchu, we have an entire novel about it from BL. We also have the lead up to the Taros Campaign from IA 3.

 Manchu wrote:
We have more information from the DW Corebook, which says the Tau directly rule a small group of humans who are the most loyal to the Greater Good and in turn those humans rule the rest of the humans.

And I might point out, FFG have not had a good track record with fluff on occasion. (*Standing by for HBMC to complain that I nitpick too much*)

 Manchu wrote:
Could you point me to where you read this?

White Dwarf 263, IA 3, BL Novel Star of Damocles, BL Novel For The Emperor. Codex: Tau and Codex: Tau Empire discuss the situation with other alien species...

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Um, Manchu, we have an entire novel about it from BL. We also have the lead up to the Taros Campaign from IA3

I haven't read it. If it describes the social structure of gue'la ruled by Tau then please post the relevant information because that would be very useful here. We already talked about Taros, another book that I haven't read and don't have. Other people posted that it talks about why the Imperial Governor wanted to trade with the Tau and defect from the Imperium but no one has posted anything from the book about how the humans lived as part of the Tau Empire. If the book does contain that information, please post it.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
And I might point out, FFG have not had a good track record with fluff on occasion. (*Standing by for HBMC to complain that I nitpick too much*)

I've seen your arguments with him. It seems to me that he is right that the FFG sources are just as "reliable" as any other. As a person who actually writes for FFG, he knows that they give him guidelines and those guidelines come from GW. That's good enough for me.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
White Dwarf 263, IA 3, BL Novel Star of Damocles, BL Novel For The Emperor. Codex: Tau and Codex: Tau Empire discuss the situation with other alien species...

Well man, how about some quotations?

 Manchu wrote:

nomotog wrote:
Some times these threads become hard to follow. Like when they go 10 pages in 2 days.

I don't mind catching you up as long as you are making an effort. That's why I posted the pages and quotes you requested -- but so far no response from you on that issue.

Sorry, I did miss that post.

You gave a quote from a water cast liaison. Not a member of the cast. After all his title is still gue'la not kor'la. That actually confirms that there is no caste system in human worlds. You have a water cast liaison with the same title that the tau give to military men. If there was a cast system, then they would have different titles like the tau do.

@nomotog: Since you missed that post, please see the other ones where I addressed everything you just posted.

I'd rather just take a brake from this thread.

 Manchu wrote:
I haven't read it. If it describes the social structure of gue'la ruled by Tau then please post the relevant information because that would be very useful here. We already talked about Taros, another book that I haven't read and don't have. Other people posted that it talks about why the Imperial Governor wanted to trade with the Tau and defect from the Imperium but no one has posted anything from the book about how the humans lived as part of the Tau Empire. If the book does contain that information, please post it.

Star of Damocles basically has it not much different than under the Imperium (though the argument can be made that the worlds in question had not fully gone over yet) Technology was more wide spread, with hybridizations of Tau and Imperial tech (chimeras with tau engines, Imperial starships fitted with Tau railguns). Like most BL novels, it focused more on the (supposedly) great and (theoretically) good.

 Manchu wrote:
I've seen your arguments with him. It seems to me that he is right that the FFG sources are just as "reliable" as any other. As a person who actually writes for FFG, he knows that they give him guidelines and those guidelines come from GW. That's good enough for me.

Sorry, but when FFG directly conflicts with Codex, Codex wins. I've worked with GW before, I know how often one hand has no idea what the other is doing.

 Manchu wrote:
Well man, how about some quotations?

"Human auxiliary troopers are a fairly common sight along the western fringes of Tau space, in particular on those worlds contested during the Damocles Crusade... These warriors and their offspring now maintain colonies on the frontiers of Tau space, content under their new masters yet none the less apprehensive of Imperial retribution should they face another crusade." - White Dwarf 263. So, from this we can gather that the tales of mass sterilizations are most likely untrue, as they're multiplying enough they have their own colonies and are a fairly common sight.

"Those humans who have joined the Tau empire have been provided with the technology required to prevail on the Tau frontier. They have limited production capabilities, allowing them to construct equipment ranging from simple farming tools to a copy of the standard issue Imperial lasgun. In times of war, the Tau allow the Gue'vesa access to more advanced weaponry such as pulse rifles and carbines and other, more specialised equipment. These auxiliaries have become a respected part of the Tau military in the border regions, where they fill a tactical niche between the barbaric Kroot and the mainstay of Tau armies, the Fire Warrior teams. " Which looks to mean that they allow the humans to more or less run themselves, but don't give them access to higher end toys unsupervised. (Which more or less matches what Hoare wrote in Star of Damocles, since he wrote both the WD article and that novel)

In IA 3, Mention is made of human auxiliaria again, as well as the Tau putting those Imperials who opted to be POWs to work in the mines. Exactly why the humans that joined the auxiliaria did so is not covered, but according to pg 146, they at least equaled the number of fire warriors. Page 281 states that they were entirely volunteers. Apparently the PDf was dissolved, and the PDF troopers were offered several options, including go do whatever they wanted, sign up to help run the mines, or join the human auxiliaria. Most apparently decided to join the Tau. According to page 286, Human Auxiliaries had entirely human officers, who then ostensibly reported to the Tau and were given rank equal to tau who held equivalent positions.

Codex: Tau Empire is a bit vague in how extensive the dissemination of Tau tech and goods was to the common person, if it followed the pattern For the Emperor (top down trade agreements with bottom up distribution of tau tech that generally improved the lives of the every day person) then it can be safely suggested that over all life under the tau was an improvement compared to the Imperium, if only for the fact that the Tau eschew brute force and intense labor where technology will do. Codex: tau Empire does state that a wide variety of aliens exist alongside the Tau (however, only the Kroot, Vespid, and Nicassar are discussed at any length, though the Demiurg seem to, rather like the kroot, allied but following their own interests first.)

Very helpful! I wish FW books were less expensive.

The thing. Is that's not the case Manchu. Iys not a 'We don't know' situation. Because published literarture at the moment proves that:-

A) Tau are Born into Castes
B) Cannot join new castes
C) cannot interbreed
D) human tau auxilliary soldiers are not described as Shas but Gue'vesa.
E) we have a fairly in depth overview of Castes in the codex and its clear that Tau are born into it, but no mention of forced application for client races.

So those are the Facts I would hope you agree.

That proves that Tau are organised into Castes with no mention of client races.

Its not a case of 'God' where lack of science one way or the other can't prove anything.
Its a case of all current evidence points to the Tau being born into their castes with no supporting evidence at all for Non tau caste members.

I will admit its theoretically possible for the suggestion, but theoretically possible and having an assumption that breaks from current publiushed descriptions of the caste system are 2 different things.

Also where is this Gue'la Water caste liason? Is it one of the expansions?

Also this thread is making me want to get Tau. Maybe AI or BFG rather than a full army.

 Eetion wrote:
Maybe AI or BFG rather than a full army.

If you go BFG, I might direct your gaze to FAQ2010 and it's expanded Tau fleet options. Unlike 40k, FW minis are 'official' in BFG.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Eetion wrote:
Maybe AI or BFG rather than a full army.

If you go BFG, I might direct your gaze to FAQ2010 and it's expanded Tau fleet options. Unlike 40k, FW minis are 'official' in BFG.

The FW ships are not a blinding eyesore like the GW ones (Same goes for Marine Strike Cruisers) which is a huge pro (They also have better rules)

Hey, I like my ships like big flying Vaticans and all. More to the point, we've only been arguing about the Humans...have the Tau ever encountered Eldar Exodites? From what I know, the Craftworlds don't like it when non-Eldar mess around with the Exodites and the Maiden Worlds (Biel-Tan supposedly takes it to the extremes).

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Sorry, but when FFG directly conflicts with Codex, Codex wins.

"Wins" what? Without a strict canon policy, it just comes down to which one you personally choose. Plus, in order to pick between sources, you need a contradiction between them. Nothing you posted contradicts the DW Corebook.

 Eetion wrote:
I will admit its theoretically possible

That's all I ever suggested. This all began when Kroothawk suggested the Tau can't be totalitarians because they don't force the Caste system on other aliens and that they had never even tried to do so. Tau do have a totalitarian society. From what we can see in the fluff, their government controls every aspect of their lives. It's a waterfall system: the Ethereals give commands to the high-level Caste members who then manage the rest of the Caste. The Tau do the same with their client races -- the Tau rule the rulers of their client populations.

 Eetion wrote:
Also this thread is making me want to get Tau.

Yeah, I got my Fire Warriors out again to paint because of this thread.

The annoying things is that I had a FW Tau fleet until about a year and half ago when I sold it on E Bay. Aeronautica too.

 Manchu wrote:
"Wins" what? Without a strict canon policy, it just comes down to which one you personally choose. Plus, in order to pick between sources, you need a contradiction between them. Nothing you posted contradicts the DW Corebook.

I wasn't talking about Tau in that case. Battlefleet Koronus had a few entries that directly conflict with the BFG Blue Book. (Most glaringly the Repulsive class entry.) In the end HBMC and I had to more or less agree to disagree, as we had both worked on our respective 40k spaceships items at about the same time.

Yeah, I'd say that comes down to a choice. Even if you have a preference for codices, BFG is a currently unsupported game (most recent release something like five years ago?) with no likely future. A game in a similar situation, Inquisitor, contains some pretty wacky fluff, too.

 Manchu wrote:
Yeah, I'd say that comes down to a choice. Even if you have a preference for codices, BFG is a currently unsupported game (most recent release something like five years ago?) with no likely future. A game in a similar situation, Inquisitor, contains some pretty wacky fluff, too.

Most recent release was IA 10. So, 2010, same time as the updated FAQ. As far as having no future, that's funny, FW continues to release material for it. Edited by Manchu.

Is totalitarian the right term? I'd call them an oligarchy but I don't think the terms are mutally exclusive.

Nah, they're not contradictory but they don't always have to go hand in hand either.