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The Tau seek to free nobody. They just want more citizens to enslave using their mind control.

Guess who swells the ranks of the IG? Voluntary recruits. They choose to die for the Imperium. They choose to give their lives in human wave tactics.

I'm not gonna debate the Astra Militarum's tactics and strategies with a heretic. Humanity does what it does for humanity. If a human chooses not to follow orders, he is free to die for his disobedience. If a Tau wishes not to follow orders, an Ethereal orders him and the Tau loses his sense of will, obeying like a servitor. They cannot choose to die for their beliefs.

Disturbing.

Most planets draft people, it's part of their Tithe to the Imperium, actually. While some might volunteer... that's not widely supported in the fluff.

The Vostroyans, for example, send every first-born son to the Guard as their tithe. That's not voluntary, that's compulsory.

Elysians are all-volunteer though.

That's 1 planet out of 1 million. Even the Tanith First-and-Only were raised as a tithe of their world. Some of them volunteered, but not all did. The DKOK exist only to be Guardsmen. The people of Cadia submit 100% of their population to the Guard.

The Tanith First and Only were recruited from the planets Militia. Even then the enemy they were facing was enough of a real threat to justify conscription by a fair margin. Similarly if everyone on Cadia wasn't conscripted then Cadia would be overrun instantly. That isn't propaganda. DKOK uses recruitment techniques that are illegal even by the Imperiums standards but it doesn't follow up on it because it needs the manpower.

The fluff supports that the majority of planets don't even donate Guardsmen and that the majority that do provide tithes of Guardsmen usually provides them from the top 1% of the planetary defence force.

If you want unjustifiably excessive and brutal conscription, look at how every Fire Warrior is racially selected at birth, specially bred and raised to join the military, cannot leave the military and cannot think about anything else other than the military including so far as to have their sex drive completely killed.

Wow...its just so...amazing. The sheer desire and joy for genocide and racism is frighteningly disturbing. Utterly. I'm not responding after this again. If people want to celebrate racism, genocide, bigotry, fanaticism then I want no part of it. Especially when all its based on is lies told through teeth. How Kant, Hume, Hegel, Mills, Descartes and virtually every major work of widely read and supported philosophy on morals and ethics would be dismayed.

@urbanknight: It isn't trivial. It is utterly sickening. Its disgusting to ''other" someone and I have no idea why someone would even want to do it for fun in a fictional setting. Also Tau aren't mind controlled. Read some actual Tau books. Tau exercise Free Will all the time, otherwise the Farsight Enclaves couldn't even exist, and Yamamoto and Earth Caste Members who are openly written as disobeying direct orders but surviving and going on in Tau society would be impossible. Again you take an innuendo of a thing and draw it out because you need a straw man due to you inability to deal with the actual reality of the situation. Tau are far from oppressive as the Imperium since, for example, a group of humans who were being murdered by the Imperium due to practicing ancestor worship are allowed to continue this practice with no punishment once they joined the Tau Empire. This happened. It is a simply clear cut example. Additionally the Tau Empire didn't magically overnight become chaos infested who die because of it. For those who argue aliens should be exterminated or else they will kill humans, utter rubbish, the Tau have contacts and alliances with at least two species (Kroot and Tarellians) who consider themselves allies and none of these have killed each other or suffered for their working arrangement together. Nicassar and Demiurg too.

@Iron_Captain: Critical thinking doesn't automatically lead to Chaos. The Eldar Empire collapsed because it slid from inquiry to hedonism. Summed up nicely by Eldrad when he informs his apprentices that ceasing to inquire and ask questions generated the fall. The Tau Empire practices critical thinking skills in similar degrees to us and, to my knowledge, have suffered little to no Chaos corruption for it. The only attempt by Chaos to corrupt Tau I know; the Fire Warrior novelization, ended with Kais throwing off the Daemon's influence through reaffirmation thanks to Lusha that the journey is a worthwhile endeavor even if only a regulatory idea and the Ethereal being impossible to corrupt due to its self-awareness of its own emotions. As for you moral philosophy, that is pure relativism which is often thrown around today, if you want I can provide links to the enormous body of work arguing against it but I'm not going to distract myself by going into the details of that right now since that would be an essay of enormous length.

@Wyzilla: Ridiculous rosy image of the Imperium. Sources have described the populations of Forge Worlds as living as slaves and being treated as such. Numerous fluff sources, Shield of Baal and Ciaphas Cain to name two, have the Imperium Worlds suffer from extreme class discrimination by the higher class against the lower class. Religious persecution is a form of persecution as real as gender and race and it happens CONSTANTLY in the Imperium (Shield of Baal being another recent example). Again it is Aristotle's favorite fallacy as you insist that the Imperium can be no other way than how it is. Not to mention, yes, the Imperium is more oppressive than the Tau Empire, that's just been canonically said in books from Taros to the codex themselves.

@Seylm: You prescribe one extreme example and then draw it out to a general rule. I could also encounter an ant colony whilst walking down a road one day. It poses me no harm, I want nothing from it, hence I leave it alone and do not disturb it. The Imperium does not destroy races purely because they threaten them. The Tarellian Homeworld was annihilated as a matter of course, not due to a threat it posed. As you say though since none of this matters for sentient life forms I don't even know the point you are trying to make.

@Signet: Tau Fire Warriors don't have their sex drives killed, in the Fire Warrior novelization a commander even fantasizes over a female compatriot and wonders to himself hornily when he'll getting sex next. That being said your point still stands that a Caste Based system has glaring moral problems. Buts its ridiculous to ignore the frequent use of conscripted soldiers in the military of the Imperium, including horrific penal legions, simply to make yet another straw man argument against the Tau.

So done, don't care, hatred wins as always so we can embrace racism to its extreme. Hooray again for racism. I'd advise reading some of the world's major philosophers; Kant and such, if one wants a good read. Also...gee GW why did you make the Tau? Seemingly every player hates them and their apparently a horrible, evil 2-dimensional loser. Seriously makes me wonder what Tau Codex and books I have been reading too have missed all that.

This thread really has no place on a 40k board. It should be moved to off topic based off the fact that the OP takes this seriously with the notion that real life morals applies to 40k.

There is no philosophy in 40k, there is only survival, there is no right to life, you have to fight to live.

Here is a better prompt.

Why should real life morality be applied to 40k?

If you can answer that question, then this discussion actually may have a reason to exist.

 Psienesis wrote:
That's 1 planet out of 1 million. Even the Tanith First-and-Only were raised as a tithe of their world. Some of them volunteered, but not all did. The DKOK exist only to be Guardsmen. The people of Cadia submit 100% of their population to the Guard.

In contrast to the Imperium's use of humans as unwilling cannon fodder, during the Taros campaign humans were used largely in the rear to hold cities an d important locations while the Fire Caste (and their honorable Kroot allies) took most of the burden of throwing out the imperium's invasion force.

 Quickjager wrote:
This thread really has no place on a 40k board. It should be moved to off topic based off the fact that the OP takes this seriously with the notion that real life morals applies to 40k.

There is no philosophy in 40k, there is only survival, there is no right to life, you have to fight to live.

Here is a better prompt.

Why should real life morality be applied to 40k?

If you can answer that question, then this discussion actually may have a reason to exist.

Thank you. Jesus Christ, this is a discussion with half of the people taking it too seriously, and the other, myself included, speaking in character. If FaceTurnedAway doesn't want anything to do with this and gets constantly depressed over this, why is he even here? This forum is named after a manic killer race's catchphrase. This game coined a phrase that means eternal suffering worse than death. The motto of this game is "there is no peace, only eternal war."

You people forget this is a game. You want to debate about it, cool. But don't try to bring morals into it. They tried that last decade with videoganes and look where it got them. I don't care if the glorious Imperium rustles your jimmies. Its a great game and the fluff is interesting because everything sucks.

 urbanknight4 wrote:


Thank you. Jesus Christ, this is a discussion with half of the people taking it too seriously, and the other, myself included, speaking in character. If FaceTurnedAway doesn't want anything to do with this and gets constantly depressed over this, why is he even here? This forum is named after a manic killer race's catchphrase. This game coined a phrase that means eternal suffering worse than death. The motto of this game is "there is no peace, only eternal war."

You people forget this is a game. You want to debate about it, cool. But don't try to bring morals into it. They tried that last decade with videoganes and look where it got them. I don't care if the glorious Imperium rustles your jimmies. Its a great game and the fluff is interesting because everything sucks.

Last decade? gak, they're STILL doing it, because a bitch tried to feth her way to positive press, got caught, and cried "sexism" when people demanded that the journalist she fethed be fired.

This is probably not the place to continue that discussion, but by Nurgle's rotten cock, we play games to ESCAPE the real world.

Some people need to remember that's the whole frickin' point.

@FaceTurnedAway, I'm starting to think you are trolling. This is a fictional world, where no one really gets hurt.

Please drop the drama act - some people are just having a good time immersing themselves in the FICTIONAL 40k universe. Just because you root for the IoM in this FICTIONAL world doesn't make you a monster. No one here (hopefully) is raping or killing anyone. I'd even go so far to say all of these posters are anti-rape AND anti-murder. So relax.

Also - we get it. You read philosophy. Fine, lovely, glad it makes you happy. No need to remind us any more.

Wow...its just so...amazing. The sheer desire and joy for genocide and racism is frighteningly disturbing. Utterly. I'm not responding after this again. If people want to celebrate racism, genocide, bigotry, fanaticism then I want no part of it. Especially when all its based on is lies told through teeth. How Kant, Hume, Hegel, Mills, Descartes and virtually every major work of widely read and supported philosophy on morals and ethics would be dismayed.

All of whom died some 38,000 years ago in the era of 40K. Their names, and their works, are lost and forgotten, never to be recovered.

So done, don't care, hatred wins as always so we can embrace racism to its extreme. Hooray again for racism. I'd advise reading some of the world's major philosophers; Kant and such, if one wants a good read. Also...gee GW why did you make the Tau? Seemingly every player hates them and their apparently a horrible, evil 2-dimensional loser. Seriously makes me wonder what Tau Codex and books I have been reading too have missed all that.

Hatred is the Emperor's gift to humanity.
The Emperor asks only that you hate.

@Wyzilla: Ridiculous rosy image of the Imperium. Sources have described the populations of Forge Worlds as living as slaves and being treated as such. Numerous fluff sources, Shield of Baal and Ciaphas Cain to name two, have the Imperium Worlds suffer from extreme class discrimination by the higher class against the lower class. Religious persecution is a form of persecution as real as gender and race and it happens CONSTANTLY in the Imperium (Shield of Baal being another recent example). Again it is Aristotle's favorite fallacy as you insist that the Imperium can be no other way than how it is. Not to mention, yes, the Imperium is more oppressive than the Tau Empire, that's just been canonically said in books from Taros to the codex themselves.

That the Imperium is more-oppressive does not make the Tau not-oppressive. It's not an on/off situation.

@urbanknight: It isn't trivial. It is utterly sickening. Its disgusting to ''other" someone and I have no idea why someone would even want to do it for fun in a fictional setting. Also Tau aren't mind controlled. Read some actual Tau books. Tau exercise Free Will all the time, otherwise the Farsight Enclaves couldn't even exist, and Yamamoto and Earth Caste Members who are openly written as disobeying direct orders but surviving and going on in Tau society would be impossible. Again you take an innuendo of a thing and draw it out because you need a straw man due to you inability to deal with the actual reality of the situation. Tau are far from oppressive as the Imperium since, for example, a group of humans who were being murdered by the Imperium due to practicing ancestor worship are allowed to continue this practice with no punishment once they joined the Tau Empire. This happened. It is a simply clear cut example. Additionally the Tau Empire didn't magically overnight become chaos infested who die because of it. For those who argue aliens should be exterminated or else they will kill humans, utter rubbish, the Tau have contacts and alliances with at least two species (Kroot and Tarellians) who consider themselves allies and none of these have killed each other or suffered for their working arrangement together. Nicassar and Demiurg too.

Welcome to dystopian fiction.

 Psienesis wrote:

@Wyzilla: Ridiculous rosy image of the Imperium. Sources have described the populations of Forge Worlds as living as slaves and being treated as such. Numerous fluff sources, Shield of Baal and Ciaphas Cain to name two, have the Imperium Worlds suffer from extreme class discrimination by the higher class against the lower class. Religious persecution is a form of persecution as real as gender and race and it happens CONSTANTLY in the Imperium (Shield of Baal being another recent example). Again it is Aristotle's favorite fallacy as you insist that the Imperium can be no other way than how it is. Not to mention, yes, the Imperium is more oppressive than the Tau Empire, that's just been canonically said in books from Taros to the codex themselves.

That the Imperium is more-oppressive does not make the Tau not-oppressive. It's not an on/off situation.

The Tau Empire merely requests that humans pull their weight in accordance with the Greater Good. They need not die by the thousands as fodder, as the Imperium sends them to do. They may guard their homes and livelihood while the Fire Caste forges itself in battle. You may labor in mines, but by the Greater Good, drones shall do the most dangerous work. The Tau Empire does not ask you to throw your lives away. It only asks that you contribute to the Greater Good.

FaceTurnedAway.

Evidently as you're going off the Fire Warrior books you're using a different point of view of the Tau than I am. I'm going off the codex and cannon fluff (ignore the comment I made earlier about gelding) which does state that the Tau engage in immoral activities such as racial conscription. The Black Library books favour whatever faction they're about and in the same way that Tau:FireWarrior describes the Tau as being the ultimate good guys, the Guant's Ghosts books describe the Imperium as doing only what's ultimately necessary.

Looking at the faction overall, the Imperium is obviously far worse, however it has a great amount of morral variety within it. There are countless worlds that undoubtedly conscript children to use as meat shields. This is abhorrent and unforgivable no matter what. At the same time there is undoubtedly countless worlds that conscript because its under constant attack by Chaos Marines and Orks, such as Cadia and Armaggedon. There are worlds within the Imperium where people live peaceful lives free from oppression such as on feral worlds, yet at the same time there are worlds were people are raised and die without ever having seen the sun because they're lives are so horrible. The Tau undoubtedly treat their citizens better than the worse parts of the Imperium, but there's going to be worlds invaded by the tau were the civilians were better off living under the Imperium. Maybe worlds like this are rare, but they exist.

I never made a strawman argument against the Tau either, I was responding to a comment that implied that the Tau don't use conscription. I was pointing out that they do. That isn't a strawman argument, If you're looking for a real strawman argument, see below;

 urbanknight4 wrote:

 Quickjager wrote:
This thread really has no place on a 40k board. It should be moved to off topic based off the fact that the OP takes this seriously with the notion that real life morals applies to 40k.

There is no philosophy in 40k, there is only survival, there is no right to life, you have to fight to live.

Here is a better prompt.

Why should real life morality be applied to 40k?

If you can answer that question, then this discussion actually may have a reason to exist.

Thank you. Jesus Christ, this is a discussion with half of the people taking it too seriously, and the other, myself included, speaking in character. If FaceTurnedAway doesn't want anything to do with this and gets constantly depressed over this, why is he even here? This forum is named after a manic killer race's catchphrase. This game coined a phrase that means eternal suffering worse than death. The motto of this game is "there is no peace, only eternal war."

You people forget this is a game. You want to debate about it, cool. But don't try to bring morals into it. They tried that last decade with videoganes and look where it got them. I don't care if the glorious Imperium rustles your jimmies. Its a great game and the fluff is interesting because everything sucks.

" I agree that we shouldn't bring non-40k things onto a 40k website.. By the way I'm gonna force Gamergate into the debate for absolutely no reasonother than to create a fake morral highground for myself!"

Now FaceTurnedAway, see that? That's a real strawman argument right there.

Also for the record, I speak for no one else. If I support a rational point someone's made then it means I support that point, not that persons views on the Tau.

 Signet-Powers wrote:
FaceTurnedAway.

Evidently as you're going off the Fire Warrior books you're using a different point of view of the Tau than I am. I'm going off the codex and cannon fluff (ignore the comment I made earlier about gelding) which does state that the Tau engage in immoral activities such as racial conscription. The Black Library books favour whatever faction they're about and in the same way that Tau:FireWarrior describes the Tau as being the ultimate good guys, the Guant's Ghosts books describe the Imperium as doing only what's ultimately necessary.

Looking at the faction overall, the Imperium is obviously far worse, however it has a great amount of morral variety within it. There are countless worlds that undoubtedly conscript children to use as meat shields. This is abhorrent and unforgivable no matter what. At the same time there is undoubtedly countless worlds that conscript because its under constant attack by Chaos Marines and Orks, such as Cadia and Armaggedon. There are worlds within the Imperium where people live peaceful lives free from oppression such as on feral worlds, yet at the same time there are worlds were people are raised and die without ever having seen the sun because they're lives are so horrible. The Tau undoubtedly treat their citizens better than the worse parts of the Imperium, but there's going to be worlds invaded by the tau were the civilians were better off living under the Imperium. Maybe worlds like this are rare, but they exist.

I never made a strawman argument against the Tau either, I was responding to a comment that implied that the Tau don't use conscription. I was pointing out that they do. That isn't a strawman argument, If you're looking for a real strawman argument, see below;

 urbanknight4 wrote:

 Quickjager wrote:
This thread really has no place on a 40k board. It should be moved to off topic based off the fact that the OP takes this seriously with the notion that real life morals applies to 40k.

There is no philosophy in 40k, there is only survival, there is no right to life, you have to fight to live.

Here is a better prompt.

Why should real life morality be applied to 40k?

If you can answer that question, then this discussion actually may have a reason to exist.

Thank you. Jesus Christ, this is a discussion with half of the people taking it too seriously, and the other, myself included, speaking in character. If FaceTurnedAway doesn't want anything to do with this and gets constantly depressed over this, why is he even here? This forum is named after a manic killer race's catchphrase. This game coined a phrase that means eternal suffering worse than death. The motto of this game is "there is no peace, only eternal war."

You people forget this is a game. You want to debate about it, cool. But don't try to bring morals into it. They tried that last decade with videoganes and look where it got them. I don't care if the glorious Imperium rustles your jimmies. Its a great game and the fluff is interesting because everything sucks.

" I agree that we shouldn't bring non-40k things onto a 40k website.. By the way I'm gonna force Gamergate into the debate for absolutely no reasonother than to create a fake morral highground for myself!"

Now FaceTurnedAway, see that? That's a real strawman argument right there.

Also for the record, I speak for no one else. If I support a rational point someone's made then it means I support that point, not that persons views on the Tau.

You must not have a calendar in your possession. I said a decade ago, not last year. A decade ago lawyers and worried parents were demonizing video games for being ultra violent and "corrupting" children to turn them into some sort of Terminator death machine. Exactly like Face is doing implying that 40K is desensitizing us to slavery, genocide, and unprovoked warfare while his high and mighty "look at me, I can pronounce Descartes" self is free from it.

All I'm saying is that it's a game. Calm the feth down, this discussion started out fun with all of us saying stuff in character and some providing cool solutions for working with Xenos. Then the morality police came in and ruined the party. I repeat, it's a game. There's no need to get upset over it. I can say "kill all the Xenos" but still be a good person because I basically condemned plastic to die. What a tragedy.

FaceTurnedAway wrote:
[...]
@urbanknight: It isn't trivial. It is utterly sickening. Its disgusting to ''other" someone and I have no idea why someone would even want to do it for fun in a fictional setting. [...]
Now you're obviously trolling.

[Section about Tau > IOM]

@Seylm: You prescribe one extreme example and then draw it out to a general rule. I could also encounter an ant colony whilst walking down a road one day. It poses me no harm, I want nothing from it, hence I leave it alone and do not disturb it. The Imperium does not destroy races purely because they threaten them. The Tarellian Homeworld was annihilated as a matter of course, not due to a threat it posed. As you say though since none of this matters for sentient life forms I don't even know the point you are trying to make.
The point I'm trying to make is thus:
-If we can justify causing harm to an ant, why not a lizard. Why not then a mammal. Why not then a larger creature. Why not then a complex organism, such as a sentient /anything/.
-Your reaction of "must not harm ants indicates that its going to be many hours of anti-self-indoctrination before we can convince you that morals are not a fact, and are a figment of our imagination, developed by evolution to prevent us from wiping ourselves out.
-No general rule was made. Generalizations, yes, but no rules.
-I stated that we should apply morals in the first to sentient life forms, as they are the same threat as us to ourselves. They can play our game, and starting out gunz blazing is going to lead to problems.
-Once a sentient poses a threat, we follow the line of ant escalation until we come to the conclusion that it is only right to kill.

[Tau Porn]

[Doesn't understand the concepts of "Fiction", "Fantasy", "Dystopian", "Grimdark" or "In Character"]

Oh, I apoligise Urbanknight4. I saw the comment below yours about "bitch" and "cried sexism" and I assumed that when you said last decade you were reffering to the last ten years of games journalims or something like that.

Sorry about that.

 Signet-Powers wrote:
The Tanith First and Only were recruited from the planets Militia. Even then the enemy they were facing was enough of a real threat to justify conscription by a fair margin. Similarly if everyone on Cadia wasn't conscripted then Cadia would be overrun instantly. That isn't propaganda. DKOK uses recruitment techniques that are illegal even by the Imperiums standards but it doesn't follow up on it because it needs the manpower.

The fluff supports that the majority of planets don't even donate Guardsmen and that the majority that do provide tithes of Guardsmen usually provides them from the top 1% of the planetary defence force.

If you want unjustifiably excessive and brutal conscription, look at how every Fire Warrior is racially selected at birth, specially bred and raised to join the military, cannot leave the military and cannot think about anything else other than the military including so far as to have their sex drive completely killed.

Not possible for the Fire Caste to be prevented from breeding. They have to breed, otherwise there is no more Fire Caste. The castes of Tau society are sub-species of their parent race, and there's no "mingling" between the castes. If you are born into the Fire Caste, your parents were Fire Caste, their parents were Fire Caste, and so on.

 Psienesis wrote:

 Signet-Powers wrote:
The Tanith First and Only were recruited from the planets Militia. Even then the enemy they were facing was enough of a real threat to justify conscription by a fair margin. Similarly if everyone on Cadia wasn't conscripted then Cadia would be overrun instantly. That isn't propaganda. DKOK uses recruitment techniques that are illegal even by the Imperiums standards but it doesn't follow up on it because it needs the manpower.

The fluff supports that the majority of planets don't even donate Guardsmen and that the majority that do provide tithes of Guardsmen usually provides them from the top 1% of the planetary defence force.

If you want unjustifiably excessive and brutal conscription, look at how every Fire Warrior is racially selected at birth, specially bred and raised to join the military, cannot leave the military and cannot think about anything else other than the military including so far as to have their sex drive completely killed.

Not possible for the Fire Caste to be prevented from breeding. They have to breed, otherwise there is no more Fire Caste. The castes of Tau society are sub-species of their parent race, and there's no "mingling" between the castes. If you are born into the Fire Caste, your parents were Fire Caste, their parents were Fire Caste, and so on.

They genetically suprress the sexual drive of all Tau until breeding is permitted, then it is reactivated. This is so they can control the birth rate. Otherwise Tau feel no strong sexual urges.

 Psienesis wrote:

 Signet-Powers wrote:
The Tanith First and Only were recruited from the planets Militia. Even then the enemy they were facing was enough of a real threat to justify conscription by a fair margin. Similarly if everyone on Cadia wasn't conscripted then Cadia would be overrun instantly. That isn't propaganda. DKOK uses recruitment techniques that are illegal even by the Imperiums standards but it doesn't follow up on it because it needs the manpower.

The fluff supports that the majority of planets don't even donate Guardsmen and that the majority that do provide tithes of Guardsmen usually provides them from the top 1% of the planetary defence force.

If you want unjustifiably excessive and brutal conscription, look at how every Fire Warrior is racially selected at birth, specially bred and raised to join the military, cannot leave the military and cannot think about anything else other than the military including so far as to have their sex drive completely killed.

Not possible for the Fire Caste to be prevented from breeding. They have to breed, otherwise there is no more Fire Caste. The castes of Tau society are sub-species of their parent race, and there's no "mingling" between the castes. If you are born into the Fire Caste, your parents were Fire Caste, their parents were Fire Caste, and so on.

Guys. GUYS.

This sounds like the people from Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. In it, the inhabitants are separated into castes: the Alphas are the richest, the Betas are middle class, etc etc until we reach the lowest, the Epsilons, who act as forced labor.

That sound like somebody we know, right? Not yet. Listen up.

EVERY SINGLE CASTE IN BNW WAS HAPPY.

They were indoctrinated from birth with suggestive hypnotism and subliminal messages to accept their lot in life, the fact that they had been bred for their purpose, and even wish to remain in their place. Every Epsilon was born as a healthy embryo. Every Epsilon was injected with a chemical that would slow their growth and intelligence. Every Epsilon was indoctrinated in the great duty they would perform for humanity. And this is the message they heard every night in their cribs:

"I am happy to be an Epsilon. I wouldn't wish to be an Alpha. They have too many responsibilities. I'm glad I don't have to handle their work. I am happy to be an Epsilon."

I'm paraphrasing since obviously I didn't memorize the line, but you get the idea. What race does this sound like? A race that separates it's citizens by their occupations and then goes as far as straining them to be subspecies? A race that, even if you're a base worker tasked with a crappy job, remains happy knowing they're part of the greater good?

I'm not saying any names. Just throwing that out there

Um, yeah. What? You thought GW came up with something entirely original? I say LOL at you, sir... I say LOL.

40k doesn't have an original thought in its head, all of its elements come from other sources in fantasy, sci-fi, real-world events and so on and so forth, all played for parodies and laffs.

Just one thing that makes me prefer the IoM over the Tau is that Imperium for the most part is completely open on it's brutallity and what they hope to accomplish with it. They don't infect you with a sterility plague and let you belive you still have some purpose, they just tell you failed to serve the Emperor and put you in front a firing squad. See the Imperium genuinly knows and admits that it's harshness and ruthlesness are a necessity for the preservation of humanity and that there is no feasable alternative for the forseeable future.

 Psienesis wrote:
Um, yeah. What? You thought GW came up with something entirely original? I say LOL at you, sir... I say LOL.

40k doesn't have an original thought in its head, all of its elements come from other sources in fantasy, sci-fi, real-world events and so on and so forth, all played for parodies and laffs.

B-but Spehss Mehreens...

FaceTurnedAway wrote:
...Kant, Hume, Hegel, Mills, Descartes and virtually every major work of widely read and supported philosophy on morals and ethics would be dismayed.

To counter your claim all philosophers would dismay, Niccolò Machiavelli would approve of the imperial creed.

“And here comes in the question whether it is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved. It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both; but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved...love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

Or perhaps you'd like something from Friedrich Nietzsche?

"Not necessity, not desire - no, the love of power is the demon of men. Let them have everything - health, food, a place to live, entertainment - they are and remain unhappy and low-spirited: for the demon waits and waits and will be satisfied."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

It's us or them.

Let none survive, in the Emperor's name!

iLLiTHiD wrote:

FaceTurnedAway wrote:
...Kant, Hume, Hegel, Mills, Descartes and virtually every major work of widely read and supported philosophy on morals and ethics would be dismayed.

To counter your claim all philosophers would dismay, Niccolò Machiavelli would approve of the imperial creed.

“And here comes in the question whether it is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved. It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both; but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved...love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

Or perhaps you'd like something from Friedrich Nietzsche?

"Not necessity, not desire - no, the love of power is the demon of men. Let them have everything - health, food, a place to live, entertainment - they are and remain unhappy and low-spirited: for the demon waits and waits and will be satisfied."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

It's us or them.

Let none survive, in the Emperor's name!

Mah man, quoting from Based Machiavelli

 Robbert Ambrose wrote:
Just one thing that makes me prefer the IoM over the Tau is that Imperium for the most part is completely open on it's brutallity and what they hope to accomplish with it. They don't infect you with a sterility plague and let you belive you still have some purpose, they just tell you failed to serve the Emperor and put you in front a firing squad. See the Imperium genuinly knows and admits that it's harshness and ruthlesness are a necessity for the preservation of humanity and that there is no feasable alternative for the forseeable future.

On the contrary, humanity has other options. Many humans have seen the wisdom of serving the Greater Good. The Tau do not sterilize humans- if they did, there would be no Gue'vesa from worlds captured prior to the Damocles Crusade helping in the 3rd Crusade.

Humans can serve the Emperor and the Greater Good. Most humans in the Tau Empire still worship him.

^ And that, dear friends, is why 'kill on sight' is the answer.

Apostasy and sedition cannot be tolerated!

Cleanse. Purge. Kill.

I get the feeling that the rest of the posts here are gonna just be in-character declarations of heresy, and the need for more fire.

May as well have it locked. We seem to have exhausted the debate anyway.

There's really not much to debate here. This is a dystopian setting, designed to subvert our expectations of virtue and honor, to take the worst traits of humanity, and its worst actions throughout history, turn them way up past 11, and then make those things the "proper" course of action.

If one takes umbrage at that... then I would posit that one is missing the point of 40K. There are no "good guys" here, from an objective standpoint. Even the "nicest" factions harbor significant darkness and engage in some pretty nasty behavior. Especially the Tau.

What happens when a world rebuffs the advances of the Water Caste diplomats? The Tau invade. It's not a "join us or we'll go ask someone else", it's a "join us or we'll just take the planet. We'd rather not waste the resources doing so, but if you insist, we are more than willing." And in Scenario B, there won't be many humans left to assimilate into the Tau Empire. That's the other important thing to remember about the Tau. They are an empire, which means expansionist policies, through whatever means are available.

This is not a setting of black-and-white, simply variant shades of black.