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natpri771 wrote:
1. Ethereals have absolute control over other caste members. They are so brainwashed that they will willingly kill themselves if an ethereal tells them to.

2. "The Greater Good" is really just a nicer way of saying the lesser of two evils. For the Tau, the ends completely justify the means

3. They are very dogmatic. They will gladly exterminate anyone that does not think exactly like them

4. They despise those who question the system. Is it really fair for our entire lives to be planned on the account of the conditions surrounding our bir.. xBLAMx

In fact, if the Tau novels hold any truth here, then none of these are true:

1. The Etherelas don't 'have' control, the other Castes willingly allow them to control the greater society, because the Ethereals are perceived as wise and good leaders. And to be honest here, they are wise and good leaders,, at least by Tau standards.

2. The Tau can b*tch a lot about different approaches on the same problem. There is a whole book about Shadowsun doing exactly this.

3. They are not dogmatic, but pragmatic. Big difference.

4. This one is a combination of 1 and 3. It is like how you would despise someone who advocates Stalinist communism or another hellhole-tier system instead of your confy free-market democracy. Of course you despise that guy, he would destroy everything.

Maximus Bitch wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Jape wrote:


For humanity the Imperium is the only option, for everyone else the Tau are the only option. Except the Orks but they have got their own thing going on.

If you live on a Forge World, the worst the Tau could do, even in the darkest of pro-Imperial dreams, isn't so bad as what humanity does to itself.

The Tau Empire is a better option for most humans than the Imperium is.

Sorry pal, but the purpose of this thread is to erode all hopeful ideals about the Tau and make them just about as dark and depressing as the other factions.

Sorry, then... but you're wrong. The Tau *are* better than the other factions. They're not as dark as the IoM or Eldar or anyone else. Saying things like, "they're not democratic" or "the ends justify the means" don't help, because that STILL puts them ahead of the other factions. If they kill off a race, it's because they've made overtures of unity, repeatedly, and had them rejected every time. Evil? Maybe, but not compared to anyone else in the galaxy.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

Maximus Bitch wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Jape wrote:


For humanity the Imperium is the only option, for everyone else the Tau are the only option. Except the Orks but they have got their own thing going on.

If you live on a Forge World, the worst the Tau could do, even in the darkest of pro-Imperial dreams, isn't so bad as what humanity does to itself.

The Tau Empire is a better option for most humans than the Imperium is.

Sorry pal, but the purpose of this thread is to erode all hopeful ideals about the Tau and make them just about as dark and depressing as the other factions.

Sorry, then... but you're wrong. The Tau *are* better than the other factions. They're not as dark as the IoM or Eldar or anyone else. Saying things like, "they're not democratic" or "the ends justify the means" don't help, because that STILL puts them ahead of the other factions. If they kill off a race, it's because they've made overtures of unity, repeatedly, and had them rejected every time. Evil? Maybe, but not compared to anyone else in the galaxy.

But this isn't about right or wrong. I'm not trying to have discussions about whether the Tau are better or worse than other factions. Such discussion is fruitless anyway.

What I'm trying to do is to collect all the negative things about the Tau, concentrate[i] them in one thread.

For my Night Lords' thread, I wanted to collect some redeeming qualities so as to make the Night Lords seem more three-dimensional. It failed cos so few have written good things about the Night Lords.

The Tau are generally written as good, but this thread has been more successful because more people have written bad things about them. In my view, it makes the Tau more multi-faceted too.


Now, I think this thread will rank highly among the threads you dislike. You have a very positive, hopeful view of the Tau. But I'm seeking to erode that. Why?

I like my 40K to be grimdark. The darker the better. And the Tau Empire is like this dirty white patch on a clean dark surface. Haha.

At least I can now think of the Tau in more negative terms. But too much grimdark will eventually sound ridiculous and comical. That's why we need some multi-faceted, three-dimensional characters. So we don't have comical grimdark, but some really serious, depression-inducing grimdark.


You're drawn to the Tau because you like having a beacon of hope in the grimdark 40K, which is unfortunately the opposite of what I want. Hopefully threads like these can inspire future authors. It has started with the Farsight dex. Eventually, the Tau may become darker, and darker, until all hope in the Milky Way is lost.....

Maximus Bitch wrote:

You're drawn to the Tau because you like having a beacon of hope in the grimdark 40K, which is unfortunately the opposite of what I want. Hopefully threads like these can inspire future authors. It has started with the Farsight dex. Eventually, the Tau may become darker, and darker, until all hope in the Milky Way is lost.....

A glimmer of false hope is better than no hope at all. Currently, the Tau fits the former nicely: they are shiny and cool and absolutely doomed. You might join them because they are the best you can get in the universe, but when you ask the Ethereal about what they would do against Chaos/Nids/Orks and all he says is something like "TOPKEK, no idea, but look at our 4th Sphere Expansion!"... Yeah, that's the point when you don't simply give up on hope because the world sucks, but you completely lose faith in the universe.

 AtoMaki wrote:

Maximus Bitch wrote:

You're drawn to the Tau because you like having a beacon of hope in the grimdark 40K, which is unfortunately the opposite of what I want. Hopefully threads like these can inspire future authors. It has started with the Farsight dex. Eventually, the Tau may become darker, and darker, until all hope in the Milky Way is lost.....

A glimmer of false hope is better than no hope at all. Currently, the Tau fits the former nicely: they are shiny and cool and absolutely doomed. You might join them because they are the best you can get in the universe, but when you ask the Ethereal about what they would do against Chaos/Nids/Orks and all he says is something like "TOPKEK, no idea, but look at our 4th Sphere Expansion!"... Yeah, that's the point when you don't simply give up on hope because the world sucks, but you completely lose faith in the universe.

I was referring to the Tau becoming more evil.

But you have answered my 2nd request, about the Tau's naivete causing them to be in for a rude shock and to join the Imperium and Craftworld Eldar in mass suffering. Hoorah!

Alcibiades wrote:

 DanielBeaver wrote:
I mean, aside from them being literal space nazis?

They're not. They are racial supremacists, but the Nazis went just a little beyond that. The (almost) literal Space Nazis in 40K are the Imperium, with its genocidal ideology..

("almost" because part of Nazi ideology was continued improvement of the race by selective breeding, whereas the Imperium is genetically, um, conservative.)

Actually, no. Amongst their many duties, the Orders Famulous of the Adepta Sororitas are charged with ensuring that the Imperial worthies (IE: anyone important enough to attract the attention of the Ecclesiarchy or the Administratum) only breeds with appropriate partners that will create stronger offspring. The Imperium does, indeed, have its own eugenics program.

Alcibiades wrote:

I'm human, and I don't fight for dominance. Pretty much 100% of everyone I have ever known is human, and very few of them have fought for dominance. Curious.

Really? You don't know anyone who's worked hard for a promotion? Or to be the top of the class? Or argued with their boss/teacher/parent? Ever?

 Furyou Miko wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:

 DanielBeaver wrote:
I mean, aside from them being literal space nazis?

They're not. They are racial supremacists, but the Nazis went just a little beyond that. The (almost) literal Space Nazis in 40K are the Imperium, with its genocidal ideology..

("almost" because part of Nazi ideology was continued improvement of the race by selective breeding, whereas the Imperium is genetically, um, conservative.)

Actually, no. Amongst their many duties, the Orders Famulous of the Adepta Sororitas are charged with ensuring that the Imperial worthies (IE: anyone important enough to attract the attention of the Ecclesiarchy or the Administratum) only breeds with appropriate partners that will create stronger offspring. The Imperium does, indeed, have its own eugenics program.

Alcibiades wrote:

I'm human, and I don't fight for dominance. Pretty much 100% of everyone I have ever known is human, and very few of them have fought for dominance. Curious.

Really? You don't know anyone who's worked hard for a promotion? Or to be the top of the class? Or argued with their boss/teacher/parent? Ever?

Did not know about the pan-galactic eugenics programme, makes sense though...

On the last thing, there's a difference between being competitive/argumentative and simply refusing authority. Entire cultures have lived under foreign control for centuries with only sporadic rebellions, often put down by their peers for rocking the boat. The average Imperial is an uneducated peasant, only interested in eating, looking after their family and not dying because life is gakky dont have much time for anything else. Come a Tau emissary, he ain't talking to the peasants, he's talking to governing elite who can either die fighting these clearly technologically superior aliens or take their offer of union and joy and candy etc.

A symbolic but useful example - the British Raj in India. In history I was taught the "The Raj" which literally means 'to rule', was the unique situation of the Brits conquering India. But to the average Indian peasant The Raj simply meant the order of things - oh so these white guys are at the top, just like the Moghul Raj before them, the Persian Raj before them etc. - day to day it was still their fellow Indians collecting taxes, enforcing the laws, and they still did what their ancestors did and prayed in their own temples.

Historically it has always been the education of a middle class which has led to organised revolution, mainly because they don't get to join in with the upper-class. The Imperium is very feudal, there's always someone above you and there's a good chance they -figuratively or literally- own you. Without those guys who have wealth and free time, revolutions are rare because peasants are busy and only organise such rebellions when their situation is incredibly gakky leading to disorganised, spontaneous revolts.

Ironically if the Tau were to live up to their Mary Sue potential and post-Imperial human society developed more along our lines, you'd probably end up with middle-class nationalist clubs demanding Home Rule for Zebbada Majoris whereas the Imperium could count on an apathetic public and an elite ruling class bound by millennia old tradition.

Maybe humanity's next golden age is reliant on the Tau overthrowing the Emperor and being too liberal for their own good?

How a tau ship would probably react to ghost ship wrote:Sensor officer: "Kor'O, the sensors have detected a derelict tau vessel off the starboard bow. It... it matches the description of a vessel thought lost 169 years ago. There's no sign of battle damage, but we cannot detect any bio-signs or power signatures. It must be pitch black inside with the power generators offline."
Comms officer: "Offline? How can that be? They must have some generators functioning in order to be broadcasting."
Captain: "Kor'Ui, play the message on the main screen."
A mutilated tau pilot appears on the view screen. Strange ruins have been carved into his flesh, but the the video is too distorted to make our any details.
<message: *static* "No hope... stay away... the pain... the gates of-" *static* "- have opened. No hope.. stay away... the pain...">
Comms officer: "The message is on a constant loop. I cannot identify the source of the signal distortion."
Sensor officer: "Whatever the source, it's also interfering with our bio-scanners - for a moment they reported 666 bio-signs aboard."
Captain: "Impossible. The life support systems are all offline."
<pause>
Captain: "Prepare an away party. I want 20 civilian technicians to investigate the ship. We won't need to include any fire warriors."
Ethereal: "Kor'Ui, the vessel does look to be very large. It will take a long time to explore..."
Captain: "You are right. I will order the away team to split up."

The Tau turn naivety up to 11.
This is a species whose first reaction to the sight of a fleet of clawed, tentacled, Lovecraftian horrors is "let's send them a friendly message of welcome and ask if they want to join our empire".
A Tyranid invasion of a Tau world was thwarted by the appearance of freaky giant metal skeletons with flesh-stripping guns. Some of those metal skeletons were probably wearing flayed skin (scales?). The Tau celebrated invited them over for tea.
If the Tau met an alien leader called "Lord MurderSlaughterKiller, Master of Betrayal" the Tau would talk about how unfortunate it was to be born with such a name, then ask for an alliance.

This is another one of those topics where people are very invested in the version they like.

the fluff has been left pretty clear in its inferences, but very short of explicit language. The basic structure of the Tau society is taken from Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World. People will claim it isn't but it is. Huxlexy himself borrowed from plenty of real world analogs to create his science fiction society, but 40K definitely borrows from Huxley far more than from history in that the Tau castes have been genetically and socially engineered to create optimized "races" across the different castes, and used more social engineering to convince everyone in those castes that they are happy to be there and that their position in society is important.

And, as in BNW, the better good of society (of the Tai's Greater Good) is a sham, and exists solely to keep the leadership in charge, and to subject the lower castes with vastly reduced chance of dissatisfaction and unrest.

So ultimately, the Tau Empire is every bit as oppressive as the Imperium. They just do it more subtly and insidiously so that the oppressed don't realize they are oppressed because of the extensive social conditioning involved.

And this is where the friction begins.Players who were attracted to the superficial "They're the good guys" nature of the Tau don't like the idea that the Tau aren't actually any more good than anyone else. They're probably the least brutal, but brainwashing an entire culture and then inundating them with pervasive social conditioning and propaganda isn't really something that "good" societies do. The Tau are also aggressively expansionists, so the Greater Good is simply their greater good.

So on a comparison level, the Tau are probably the "least bad". But definitely not "good" by any means..

A lot has been said on this thread about Tau naivety, but let's dissect that a bit more.

The Tau are one of the most scientific factions. Science is all about studying something until you know how it works, yet the Tau:

Understand far less about the Warp, Daemons, and Psykers than other races. Really, their ignorance is almost childlike.

Don't seem to fully comprehend the vastness of their enemies at all. Orks, the Imperium, Tyranids, the Tau pretty much shrug them off as threats. Sure, after Domacles Gulf they were like, "Well, this human empire is a bigger deal than we thought, but meh, we can take em!" Which isn't the same is, "Holy crap, this human empire is about a HUNDRED THOUSAND TIMES BIGGER than ours, and wants to kill us." And they’re still antagonizing the IoM by expanding into Imperial space!

Genestealer Cults among the Tau? They don't seem to know a thing about Genestealers, even though Genestealers are the integral first part of a Tyranid invasion, one of which they repelled.

There's an old Imperium codex quote about being strong in your ignorance. Ironically, it perfectly embodies the Tau. They have this bright, hopeful, positive view of the galaxy that clashes horribly with the rest of the setting because THEIR VIEW OF THE GALAXY IS BASED ON A BIG FAT LIE. They don't know a thing about the Chaos gods and severely underestimate the myriad of threats lined up against them. They don't view the universe as a big scary place, even though in this setting, IT TOTALLY IS. Heck, they tried to make friends with the Dark Eldar, before that came back to bite them horribly. And I don't think this is because the Tau are just stupid. I think it's 100% deliberate. This keeps the Tau optimistic, conquering, and alliance making, without any of the (well grounded) fear that other races have about outsiders, and about unchecked technology running amok. Given their actual position in the galaxy, the Tau’s behavior, which seems logical from their perspective, is actually reckless and dangerous in the extreme. By building their empire, they’re drawing the attention of forces that could squash them like a bug. By making alliances everywhere they’re leaving themselves wide open for betrayal. And by pursuing technology without fear, they’re inviting their own machine uprising like humans in the DAoT. But all these traits also allowed them to grow fairly powerful in an extremely short amount of time. A powerful faction in the Tau Empire is keeping them ignorant of threats so they will continue with their rapid pursuit of bringing the galaxy under their "Greater Good" without fear or caution. Enter the Ethereals.

These guys came out of nowhere in Tau history. Their charismatic to the point of it being a superpower so everyone immediately loved and listened to them when they showed up, and they completely rearranged Tau society overnight. This was followed by the fastest technological leap by any race in the history of the galaxy. The Ethereals aren't natural. This has pretty much been confirmed in the fluff. They release a pheromone that makes the Tau like them, from a gland on their head that happens to be EXACTLY THE SAME as a gland in the queen of an insectoid race on the opposite side of the galaxy, and when the Ethereals showed up NEITHER OF THESE RACES HAD FTL TRAVEL.

So the Ethereals are the product of some unknown third party abducting some Tau and slicing them up to turn them into Tau/xenos hybrids. Who’s responsible? Eldar? Necrons? The Deceiver? Tzeentch? Some currently unknown race? Notice that of those, the Eldar are by far the most benign, and they view other races as nothing more than animals that they’ll gladly sacrifice if it will save even a single Eldar life. Are the Ethereals still doing the bidding of their unknown creators, or do they have their own agenda? The fact is, we know NOTHING about who created the Ethereals or their agenda, so by connection, we know NOTHING about what the Ethereals' true goals are. They may really believe this “Greater Good” party line, (and maybe they only believe it because they’ve been brainwashed themselves) or they may be using it as a cover for their true agenda.

Whether the Ethereals are in it for themselves or some other power, they know far more about the real dangers of the galaxy than the rest of the Tau, and keep them ignorant. Because the whole Tau Empire is a gambit to bring as much of the galaxy under the Ethereals’ thumb as possible and then… who knows? Who knows what the Ethereals, or their unknown overlords will do once all the other races have been pacified and can no longer resist them? The Tau are just an invasion force for an agenda they know nothing about, and the other races they bring into the Empire are just a meat shield to give the master plan more wiggle room to succeed.

They aren't humans and are willing to kill human beings who do not become subservient to them.

Tau need to be great crusaded.

Maximus Bitch wrote:
The Tau are generally written as good

Only if you don't bother thinking about what you read. In any other setting the Tau would be the Generic Evil Empire. They're ruthlessly expansionist, impose a rigid caste system ("everyone is equal, but some Tau are more equal than everyone else"), and are busy throwing vast amounts of science and engineering effort into building better and better guns. Their claims about the "greater good" should be viewed the same way that we view the US and their claims about "bringing democracy" to countries with valuable territory or resources that they want.

The ONLY way that the Tau are "good" is that they're pragmatic enough to do two things:

1) Develop science and engineering based on practical questions of "what kills the enemy better" instead of "what does our insane theocracy think is the will of god", and ruthlessly use that technology to kill the enemy from a safe distance instead of obsessing over honor or defending meaningless territory to the death.

2) Offer their enemies a chance to surrender and accept a position within the Tau empire (where, again, the Tau are more equal than everyone else) instead of mindlessly slaughtering everything they encounter.

And really, that's why the Tau are one of the most grimdark things about the 40k setting: the brightest hope for the future of humanity is an alien empire that would be clearly evil in any other setting. The fact that they don't have chaos spikes or constantly do stupid things just to show how evil they are should be considered a good thing for the fluff, not an problem that needs to be fixed.

Maximus Bitch wrote:


I like my 40K to be grimdark. The darker the better. And the Tau Empire is like this dirty white patch on a clean dark surface. Haha.

At least I can now think of the Tau in more negative terms. But too much grimdark will eventually sound ridiculous and comical. That's why we need some multi-faceted, three-dimensional characters. So we don't have comical grimdark, but some really serious, depression-inducing grimdark.


You're drawn to the Tau because you like having a beacon of hope in the grimdark 40K, which is unfortunately the opposite of what I want. Hopefully threads like these can inspire future authors. It has started with the Farsight dex. Eventually, the Tau may become darker, and darker, until all hope in the Milky Way is lost.....

... so where's your thread on the negative qualities of the Salamanders?

 EmpNortonII wrote:

... so where's your thread on the negative qualities of the Salamanders?

Give it time. The gears of Bitch grind slowly, but incredibly fine.

 fallinq wrote:
Whether the Ethereals are in it for themselves or some other power, they know far more about the real dangers of the galaxy than the rest of the Tau, and keep them ignorant. Because the whole Tau Empire is a gambit to bring as much of the galaxy under the Ethereals’ thumb as possible and then… who knows? Who knows what the Ethereals, or their unknown overlords will do once all the other races have been pacified and can no longer resist them? The Tau are just an invasion force for an agenda they know nothing about, and the other races they bring into the Empire are just a meat shield to give the master plan more wiggle room to succeed.

If the Democles book is any measure, then not even the Ethereals know what they are really doing .

 Peregrine wrote:

Maximus Bitch wrote:
The Tau are generally written as good

Only if you don't bother thinking about what you read. In any other setting the Tau would be the Generic Evil Empire. They're ruthlessly expansionist, impose a rigid caste system ("everyone is equal, but some Tau are more equal than everyone else"), and are busy throwing vast amounts of science and engineering effort into building better and better guns. Their claims about the "greater good" should be viewed the same way that we view the US and their claims about "bringing democracy" to countries with valuable territory or resources that they want.

The ONLY way that the Tau are "good" is that they're pragmatic enough to do two things:

1) Develop science and engineering based on practical questions of "what kills the enemy better" instead of "what does our insane theocracy think is the will of god", and ruthlessly use that technology to kill the enemy from a safe distance instead of obsessing over honor or defending meaningless territory to the death.

2) Offer their enemies a chance to surrender and accept a position within the Tau empire (where, again, the Tau are more equal than everyone else) instead of mindlessly slaughtering everything they encounter.

And really, that's why the Tau are one of the most grimdark things about the 40k setting: the brightest hope for the future of humanity is an alien empire that would be clearly evil in any other setting. The fact that they don't have chaos spikes or constantly do stupid things just to show how evil they are should be considered a good thing for the fluff, not an problem that needs to be fixed.

Aside from the ridiculously hyperbolic cheap shot at the United States, this is mostly correct.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Aside from the ridiculously hyperbolic cheap shot at the United States, this is mostly correct.

Tau are my favorite type of evil, an evil that is intelligent, rational, and makes you doubt yourself. An evil that actually makes a compelling argument. They are not in-your-face evil like most of the other races, it's hidden behind optimism, loyalty, and better living conditions. It's very easy to see how other races would join them willingly, without threats of violence. People complained that they weren't dark enough, so they got a little darker in this edition, harming what truly made them interesting. They are an evil that truly believes what it is doing is best for it's people and, in fact, the galaxy. Their experience with humanity has only served to reinforce this opinion. They will negotiate peacefully, often using intrigue, to gain control, avoiding war where possible. They prevent a picture that serves them well, an expanding, constantly growing empire, innovating, making lives easier and better. They offer protection in return for services, safety and high technology. They offer a better life than the average human could expect, cleaner air water and food, more efficiency, better technology. They do not even rule directly in many cases, the rule of the planets still held by the people who live there, the rulers of said planet answering to the Tau when the need arises. The average non-tau will see their station is life go up, not down, with any things that might give them misgivings shielded behind a blanket of propaganda. Jails are actually non-existent in the Tau empire, the idea of criminals are foreign, criminal acts viewed as a mental illness. And behind all this lies the true evil, we know not what the Ethereal's final plan is, nor even where they themselves came from. We have no idea what could be happening in the inner working of the tau empire. Farsight left, and he even still believes in the greater good, just disagrees with the ethereals. Who knows what the tau truly are.

 koooaei wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Aside from the ridiculously hyperbolic cheap shot at the United States, this is mostly correct.

Spoiler:

Don't want to be rude or something but all around the world the phrase "Bring democracy to X" has become some sort of meme that means "Invade X and lay hands on their resources"

...Except we never seize their resources.

If the modern day America is supposed to be imperialist, we're doing an awful job at it. We don't chase resources, we chase ghosts. Just like in the McCarthyism days.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 koooaei wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Aside from the ridiculously hyperbolic cheap shot at the United States, this is mostly correct.

Spoiler:

Don't want to be rude or something but all around the world the phrase "Bring democracy to X" has become some sort of meme that means "Invade X and lay hands on their resources"

...Except we never seize their resources.

If the modern day America is supposed to be imperialist, we're doing an awful job at it. We don't chase resources, we chase ghosts. Just like in the McCarthyism days.

Exacty. While there's definitely some misguided philosophy at work with American involvement overseas (coupled with the absurdness of suggesting any nation has ever acted solely out of magnanimity and not in its own bestinterest), at no point have any of the United States' efforts abroad to "bring Democracy" (ie, the last 60 years or so) been imperialistic. While perhaps sympathetic governments have been installed, nobody has been colonized or enslaved and had their natural resources handed over to state-run corporations.

We left that to the Europeans.

US military efforts abroad have been largely misguided attempts to stabilize the regions to ensure access to resources, not to take them.

The Tau are far more like the British and French in that regard than the United States.

I forget who said is (someone on this forum), but I liked the thing, "just replace ethereal with tea"

Your ethereals sure know how to do the job.

I've always thought that the Tau are much closer to fascism(NOT Nazism) than communism in every regard, what with the whole fierce nationalism, regulated caste system and ideas of the 'empire' being more important than the individual. In that sense they've always been a villain to me, just a less obvious and slightly more smiley one. If anyone's communist in 40k, its the Orks.
But that's a flamewar for another time...

Alcibiades wrote:


I'm human, and I don't fight for dominance. Pretty much 100% of everyone I have ever known is human, and very few of them have fought for dominance. Curious.

This is silly.

Have you ever in your life wanted a better job? How about a promotion? A fatter paycheck? A bigger house? Hotter girlfriend / wife (or even a girlfriend / wife at all)? Better car? More influence among your circle of friends?

You may not go out and clobber your co-workers and neighbors over the head with a rock, but you still fight for dominance. It's so deeply ingrained into us as humans that we barely even realize it, but damn near everything you do as a person (which isn't to reward yourself) is an expression of "fighting for dominance" in the world as we currently know it.

It's very similar to our deeply seeded violent urges. Most adults have a life-time of conditioning and don't recognize them, but violence as a solution is very deeply ingrained in us. Your first instinct in every situation which you don't like, will be one of either violence or retreat. You may not recognize it as such / even notice the little tick of the relay anymore, but it's still there.

 morganfreeman wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:


I'm human, and I don't fight for dominance. Pretty much 100% of everyone I have ever known is human, and very few of them have fought for dominance. Curious.

This is silly.

Have you ever in your life wanted a better job? How about a promotion? A fatter paycheck? A bigger house? Hotter girlfriend / wife (or even a girlfriend / wife at all)? Better car? More influence among your circle of friends?

You may not go out and clobber your co-workers and neighbors over the head with a rock, but you still fight for dominance. It's so deeply ingrained into us as humans that we barely even realize it, but damn near everything you do as a person (which isn't to reward yourself) is an expression of "fighting for dominance" in the world as we currently know it.

It's very similar to our deeply seeded violent urges. Most adults have a life-time of conditioning and don't recognize them, but violence as a solution is very deeply ingrained in us. Your first instinct in every situation which you don't like, will be one of either violence or retreat. You may not recognize it as such / even notice the little tick of the relay anymore, but it's still there.

... that being said, humans on forge worlds seem incredibly docile, given that their working conditions make Sinclair's The Jungle look like a vacation to Tahiti.

 EmpNortonII wrote:


... that being said, humans on forge worlds seem incredibly docile, given that their working conditions make Sinclair's The Jungle look like a vacation to Tahiti.

That would be the result of a socialisation that makes the slaves in the southern US look like free-thinkers.

They are literally raised with no values or encouragement beyond 'work hard for the glory of the Omnissiah'.

Even then, despite the fact that they are brainwashed from the minute they're born to be hard working slaves, they still have the ambition to better themselves - to survive, to rise to overseer positions, or even manage to make the jump to Techpriest.

They don't call them Space Communists for nothing. They still have among the best living conditions in the galaxy. But that's not saying much.

... except for the Necrons, the Eldar, the Dark Eldar, and the Tyranids. And Imperials living on Pleasure or Paradise Worlds. Orks seem to really, really like where they live, wherever they live.

The Necrons are technological gods, the Eldar and Dark Eldar have been around for a quite a few millennia longer than than tau, the tyranids aren't picky due to not having enough of a brain to care (except the hive mind i guess), and the orks dont care where they are as long as there's a fight to be had

as for the pleasure worlds they are few and far between compared to the other worlds in the imperium (plus they are inhabited by a very few number of people compared to the hive worlds)


so in my opinion the tau have it pretty good when you think about them being one of the youngest races in the milky way

 Furyou Miko wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:

... so where's your thread on the negative qualities of the Salamanders?

Give it time. The gears of Bitch grind slowly, but incredibly fine.

haha what an odd thing to say.

Relax, I have to tackle the major good guys first.

I could turn the Salamanders evil pretty easily. Besides that, there's also another way to inject more grimdark into 40K.

The Salamanders are kind and compassionate fellows, but what if their kindness caused them to get fethed? Something like "nice guys finish last".

That's pretty sad and depressing too.


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 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 koooaei wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Aside from the ridiculously hyperbolic cheap shot at the United States, this is mostly correct.

Spoiler:

Don't want to be rude or something but all around the world the phrase "Bring democracy to X" has become some sort of meme that means "Invade X and lay hands on their resources"

...Except we never seize their resources.

If the modern day America is supposed to be imperialist, we're doing an awful job at it. We don't chase resources, we chase ghosts. Just like in the McCarthyism days.

Exacty. While there's definitely some misguided philosophy at work with American involvement overseas (coupled with the absurdness of suggesting any nation has ever acted solely out of magnanimity and not in its own bestinterest), at no point have any of the United States' efforts abroad to "bring Democracy" (ie, the last 60 years or so) been imperialistic. While perhaps sympathetic governments have been installed, nobody has been colonized or enslaved and had their natural resources handed over to state-run corporations.

We left that to the Europeans.

US military efforts abroad have been largely misguided attempts to stabilize the regions to ensure access to resources, not to take them.

The Tau are far more like the British and French in that regard than the United States.

Well, I guess the US is as Imperialist as it can get away with. Not that it's an American thing. Any nation would do the same given the means.


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 Wyzilla wrote:

 koooaei wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Aside from the ridiculously hyperbolic cheap shot at the United States, this is mostly correct.

Spoiler:

Don't want to be rude or something but all around the world the phrase "Bring democracy to X" has become some sort of meme that means "Invade X and lay hands on their resources"

...Except we never seize their resources.

If the modern day America is supposed to be imperialist, we're doing an awful job at it. We don't chase resources, we chase ghosts. Just like in the McCarthyism days.

The Imperium is pretty McCarthyist. "You're a closet heretic! A Chaos-worshipping traitor!"

Chasing ghosts does help to create a healthy atmosphere of fear and hate. And the Imperium thrives on such propaganda, "fear the alien, hate the alien, kill the alien etc."


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 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Tau are my favorite type of evil, an evil that is intelligent, rational, and makes you doubt yourself. An evil that actually makes a compelling argument. They are not in-your-face evil like most of the other races, it's hidden behind optimism, loyalty, and better living conditions. It's very easy to see how other races would join them willingly, without threats of violence. People complained that they weren't dark enough, so they got a little darker in this edition, harming what truly made them interesting. They are an evil that truly believes what it is doing is best for it's people and, in fact, the galaxy. Their experience with humanity has only served to reinforce this opinion. They will negotiate peacefully, often using intrigue, to gain control, avoiding war where possible. They prevent a picture that serves them well, an expanding, constantly growing empire, innovating, making lives easier and better. They offer protection in return for services, safety and high technology. They offer a better life than the average human could expect, cleaner air water and food, more efficiency, better technology. They do not even rule directly in many cases, the rule of the planets still held by the people who live there, the rulers of said planet answering to the Tau when the need arises. The average non-tau will see their station is life go up, not down, with any things that might give them misgivings shielded behind a blanket of propaganda. Jails are actually non-existent in the Tau empire, the idea of criminals are foreign, criminal acts viewed as a mental illness. And behind all this lies the true evil, we know not what the Ethereal's final plan is, nor even where they themselves came from. We have no idea what could be happening in the inner working of the tau empire. Farsight left, and he even still believes in the greater good, just disagrees with the ethereals. Who knows what the tau truly are.

Cool enough, but unfortunately 40K already has too many deliberate mysteries.


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 Peregrine wrote:

Maximus Bitch wrote:
The Tau are generally written as good

Only if you don't bother thinking about what you read. In any other setting the Tau would be the Generic Evil Empire. They're ruthlessly expansionist, impose a rigid caste system ("everyone is equal, but some Tau are more equal than everyone else"), and are busy throwing vast amounts of science and engineering effort into building better and better guns. Their claims about the "greater good" should be viewed the same way that we view the US and their claims about "bringing democracy" to countries with valuable territory or resources that they want.

The ONLY way that the Tau are "good" is that they're pragmatic enough to do two things:

1) Develop science and engineering based on practical questions of "what kills the enemy better" instead of "what does our insane theocracy think is the will of god", and ruthlessly use that technology to kill the enemy from a safe distance instead of obsessing over honor or defending meaningless territory to the death.

2) Offer their enemies a chance to surrender and accept a position within the Tau empire (where, again, the Tau are more equal than everyone else) instead of mindlessly slaughtering everything they encounter.

And really, that's why the Tau are one of the most grimdark things about the 40k setting: the brightest hope for the future of humanity is an alien empire that would be clearly evil in any other setting. The fact that they don't have chaos spikes or constantly do stupid things just to show how evil they are should be considered a good thing for the fluff, not an problem that needs to be fixed.

Yup, just added "hypocritical" to my list of negative qualities.