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One thing that has always bothered me about the Tau and the people who play them is that they are constantly referred to as the only "good" race in the 40k lore. I would challenge that they are, in fact, one of the most corrupt and oppressive races in the galaxy. Now I will be the first to admit that I'm only starting to learn about the lore outside of the Imperium, but the Tau seem far from good.
Let's start with the caste system. The very existence of a caste system points out the fact that equality is a concept the xenos don't value. You are born to perform a specific job. You have no choice but to do this job. If you stray from this path, you are of no use to our society. I wish things were different, but I was burdened with being born in the Ethereal Caste, and it is therefore my job to ensure you are doing yours. Then we have the non-Tau "citizens". The Kroot and Vespids seem to be treated as second-class citizens. They are allowed to exist within the empire solely for their value as soldiers.
The worst offense to me is the use of the Tau motto of "For the Greater Good" to justify claiming the Tau are the "good" race of the galaxy. Have you ever actually heard anyone justify something they have done as being "for the greater good"? They don't use the expression when they have just finished a charity walk. This expression is used after something horrible has been done. You say it because you know what you did was wrong, or at least morally questionable, but you hope that it will lead to a positive outcome. Eventually. E.G. "Sure, I set fire to a box of kittens, but it was for the greater good. Those orphans who were playing with them looked cold."
I'm not saying the Tau are evil, just that they are no better than any other totalitarian regime in this messed up, grimdark world we all know and love. Their method of control is just a little more subtle.

The Greater Good is the Greater Good of the Tau Empire. They are incredibly imperialistic and treat their non Tau subjects as expendable resources and tools to be exploited. Even the common Tau is disposable if its for the benefit of the Empire. Tau propaganda wants everything to think that they are the good guys and they offer the promise of peace and prosperity as an incentive for cooperation which ultimately leads to subjugation. The Ethereal Caste have a means of thought control over their population and censor information that goes against the Greater Good. Socially the Tau Empire is a Utilitarian Fascist government with views of racial superiority and a universe wide manifest destiny. Their morality is that of fulfilling the needs of the Empire over the needs of the individual (except in protecting the lives of the Ethereals) with the Tau race being the priority over other races.

People look at the Tau as the hippie anime space commies which is a distorted view of the veneer they put on to convince others to join their empire and hide the ruthless and cold nature of the Tau leadership. Of course all the mech suits give off the vibe of anime tropes which also tends to irritate people. As you pointed out a lot of people look at the phrase "The Greater Good" and assume that the Tau are suppose to be the good guys. At best the Tau are neutral but honestly they tend to fall into the slightly darker shade of grey than the more true neutral factions like Nids or Orks (Nids want to eat, Orks want to party ).

I always pictured the life of an Ork as a 24/7 soccer riot with slightly more booze.

You are correct in the idea that they are not "good" by modern standards (egalitarianism and equality) but it is “good” in the sense that it is furthering the aims of their own faction/species. At the faction level good is described as being positive for your faction or race to survive or be successful and evil represent things that impede you. The argument that they are “good” comes from the idea that they are relatively tolerant in that they don’t outright wage genocidal wears against all non tau, which is something most other factions cannot claim. Also they tend to value most members of society as having value to the overall wellbeing of the tau state, which most factions, specifically humanity cannot claim.

As an aside the greater good isn’t really a pale justification for horrible acts. Many times it means a sacrifice made to further the bigger plan or protect a larger amount of people. The imperium’s inquisition uses a form of this philosophy when it executes the people who have knowledge of daemons to prevent them from infecting the other populace. In real world equivalent the justification is usually associated with medical research or other morally gray area that has clear ethical ramifications. If one person’s body held the key to preventing or curing a pandemic, would it not be for the greater good to risk that person’s life for the possibility of stopping the pandemic? It is also applicable on a less dramatic scale. Someone who chooses to go be a teacher, or a nurse or some other vital but undervalued or underpaid function in our society could be described as doing it for the greater good. They know they are giving up a lot of potential wealth and comfort in order to perform this vital function because they believe this function is more important than their own personal desires for wealth and comfort. Sometimes it is twisted to be a perversion of this idea, usually to prop up some government hat is abusing its people and saying that their suffering is for the greater good. This is most famously evident in politically Communist and totalitarian regimes of the 20th century like Nazi Germany, North Korea, The USSR and china. From an in game perspective the Tau forming a society that values the whole above the individual in terms of both freedoms and value is in keeping with the initial and un-perverted form of this idea. Out of game, the faction is modeled on the old communist ideologies and held in juxtaposition with the hell that human society has become to make us go “wow it must be terrible if communism looks good!” Because most of us live in places that value personal freedom over the state of the whole, we see this idea as alien, and most people in said societies would react to it with cynicism.

 GKTiberius wrote:
Out of game, the faction is modeled on the old communist ideologies and held in juxtaposition with the hell that human society has become to make us go “wow it must be terrible if communism looks good!” Because most of us live in places that value personal freedom over the state of the whole, we see this idea as alien, and most people in said societies would react to it with cynicism.

This is another point about the Tau that always bothers me: There is almost no link between Tau ideology and Communism. Communism is about ownership. As Wikipedia puts it:

In political and social sciences, communism (from Latin communis – common, universal) is a social, political, and economic ideology and movement whose ultimate goal is the establishment of the communist society, which is a socioeconomic order structured upon the common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes, money,and the state.

Note the specific reference to "the absence of social classes". Tau society is based more on a combination of the Hindu caste system and Chinese Feudalism.

Nobody owns anything in Tau society, it's all owned by the state - which is what most people think is what communism means, because that's what Stalinism was, which called itself communism (even though its the opposite of true communism).

That's why the Tau get called communists.

 EnTyme wrote:

 GKTiberius wrote:
Out of game, the faction is modeled on the old communist ideologies and held in juxtaposition with the hell that human society has become to make us go “wow it must be terrible if communism looks good!” Because most of us live in places that value personal freedom over the state of the whole, we see this idea as alien, and most people in said societies would react to it with cynicism.

This is another point about the Tau that always bothers me: There is almost no link between Tau ideology and Communism. Communism is about ownership. As Wikipedia puts it:

In political and social sciences, communism (from Latin communis – common, universal) is a social, political, and economic ideology and movement whose ultimate goal is the establishment of the communist society, which is a socioeconomic order structured upon the common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes, money,and the state.

Note the specific reference to "the absence of social classes". Tau society is based more on a combination of the Hindu caste system and Chinese Feudalism.

The tau castes aren't social classes, they are occupational classes. Social classes have a hierarchical ranging in which one class is superior in social value in some way to the other. Non of the Tau castes (even that is a misnomer because in Hindu culture the social value of each caste goes up the further up the system you go). Fire caste are not held in higher esteem than water or air or earth, they all just have different functions. The only real division of social class are ethereals and everybody else, which is exactly how old world communism works. The ruling elite is held in higher social value than everyone else.


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also the word communism is synonymous with stalinism because no government has ever achieved a functioning model of true marxist Communism. they have all fallen into autocratic totalitarian regimes.

 GKTiberius wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:

 GKTiberius wrote:
Out of game, the faction is modeled on the old communist ideologies and held in juxtaposition with the hell that human society has become to make us go “wow it must be terrible if communism looks good!” Because most of us live in places that value personal freedom over the state of the whole, we see this idea as alien, and most people in said societies would react to it with cynicism.

This is another point about the Tau that always bothers me: There is almost no link between Tau ideology and Communism. Communism is about ownership. As Wikipedia puts it:

In political and social sciences, communism (from Latin communis – common, universal) is a social, political, and economic ideology and movement whose ultimate goal is the establishment of the communist society, which is a socioeconomic order structured upon the common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes, money,and the state.

Note the specific reference to "the absence of social classes". Tau society is based more on a combination of the Hindu caste system and Chinese Feudalism.

The tau castes aren't social classes, they are occupational classes. Social classes have a hierarchical ranging in which one class is superior in social value in some way to the other. Non of the Tau castes (even that is a misnomer because in Hindu culture the social value of each caste goes up the further up the system you go). Fire caste are not held in higher esteem than water or air or earth, they all just have different functions. The only real division of social class are ethereals and everybody else, which is exactly how old world communism works. The ruling elite is held in higher social value than everyone else.


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also the word communism is synonymous with stalinism because no government has ever achieved a functioning model of true marxist Communism. they have all fallen into autocratic totalitarian regimes.

You're right about the distinction between social and occupational castes. Maybe a better comparison would be the Egyptian caste system (apparently someone and GW really likes ancient Egypt). The point still remains, though. The Tau are not communist.

 GKTiberius wrote:
The tau castes aren't social classes, they are occupational classes. Social classes have a hierarchical ranging in which one class is superior in social value in some way to the other. Non of the Tau castes (even that is a misnomer because in Hindu culture the social value of each caste goes up the further up the system you go). Fire caste are not held in higher esteem than water or air or earth, they all just have different functions. The only real division of social class are ethereals and everybody else, which is exactly how old world communism works. The ruling elite is held in higher social value than everyone else.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
also the word communism is synonymous with stalinism because no government has ever achieved a functioning model of true marxist Communism. they have all fallen into autocratic totalitarian regimes.

"Old World Communism"? What does that even mean?

The only thing communist about Tau is the probable degree of state owned property (Tau has a merchant class, not sure how state owned their operations are) but everything about them fits nicely in Fascism (read Wikipedia on Facism and tell me that it doesn't fit the Tau). While the Tau have "equal" classes for the Tau race, non Tau are of lower standing while the party (ethereal caste) rules. Even the ideology of Fascism on wikipedia describes what the Ethereals did for the Tau faction in their primitive days "Fascist governments advocated resolution of domestic class conflict within a nation in order to secure national solidarity. This would be done through the state mediating relations between the classes". Etherals show up and stop the fighting between the different "caste" and unify them together (but still keeps Tau in their caste) under the nationalist banner of "The Greater Good". Communism seeks to dissolve the classes while Fascism control the classes for domestic unification.

Now that I think about it, there are also elements of cult indoctrination (though they are far from the only race in the setting guilty of this). Specifically, their tendency to continually point to external sources of conflict in order to prevent conflict among the castes and avoid allowing the citizens of the empire to see the flaws in their own society.

Where do people get the idea that tau treat auxiliary as expendable? Last I checked, and it was a coxed or two back that I checked this, the fluff explicitly states that the tau don't believe in the idea of expendable troops.

Considering the Tau don't really share too much of their technology with their alien allies and they operate as an auxiliary force as shock troopers. It leads me to believe that they tend to use them as needed to fulfill goals but care less about their survival as they do proper Tau. This isn't enemy at the gates penal battalion style waste of life but the Tau definitely value the lives of their own over that of alien auxiliaries. Also considering that Vespids where "convinced" to join the Greater Good through what is basically thought control doesn't speak highly of their concern for the wants of other races.

 Vankraken wrote:
Considering the Tau don't really share too much of their technology with their alien allies and they operate as an auxiliary force as shock troopers. It leads me to believe that they tend to use them as needed to fulfill goals but care less about their survival as they do proper Tau. This isn't enemy at the gates penal battalion style waste of life but the Tau definitely value the lives of their own over that of alien auxiliaries. Also considering that Vespids where "convinced" to join the Greater Good through what is basically thought control doesn't speak highly of their concern for the wants of other races.

Sources?

The latest codex says they use them for shock troopers, it also talks about how initially the Vespids didn't want to convert to the Tau Empire but some "custom-made communication headsets" helped them become suddenly and completely complaint in joining the Greater Good. Also just looking at the models you see Kroot with no armor using their crude guns with pulse rounds that the Tau gave them. Only the Shapers can take standard Tau weapons like the Pulse Rifle or Pulse Carbine. In all of the material and models out there we don't see any Vespid or Kroot battle suits in use or any of their races in higher levels of leadership outside their own auxillary forces.

The kroot use their hunting rifles with tau ammo. It's kind of because they aren't a integrated part of the tau army and because the tau don't make a good melee rifle.

The vespin actually do use tau made weapons. The rifle is kind of neat ir's made by the tau, but uses crystals from the vespin home world and can only be used by the vespin. It's because the vespin are a lot more integrated into the empire.

If you include expanded fluff, the tau share their tech a lot. They even give out small battle suits. I don't think they share too too much though. The point of the auxiliary units is that they do things the tau can't do. They are meant to be different not the same.

I don't recall vespin being shock troopers. That might be new fluff or I may have just forgot. It makes sense. They are fast and hit kind of hard, so they make sense for shock troopers. That isn't the only role for the auxiliays though. They also have some that act as space miners or advisers to the aun. They kind of do the role they are most suited to. It's the idea behind the GG.

 Vankraken wrote:
The latest codex says they use them for shock troopers, it also talks about how initially the Vespids didn't want to convert to the Tau Empire but some "custom-made communication headsets" helped them become suddenly and completely complaint in joining the Greater Good. Also just looking at the models you see Kroot with no armor using their crude guns with pulse rounds that the Tau gave them. Only the Shapers can take standard Tau weapons like the Pulse Rifle or Pulse Carbine. In all of the material and models out there we don't see any Vespid or Kroot battle suits in use or any of their races in higher levels of leadership outside their own auxillary forces.

Conjecture. A few points numbered for my convenience not as a lecture.

1. Shock Troopers =/= expendable
2. The Vespid and Tau didn't understand one another so communication of ideas was next to impossible. And the codex also states that there is no evidence of coercion, it leaves that up to the individuals reading it to make their own mind up.
3. Kroot. Trust is a two way street. It make it clear from the old Kroot army lists that the Kroot don't want to be reliant on the Tau.
4. Lack of models doesn't equal or merit a broad brush approach to Tau society. After all, in earlier codecii it was stated that Tau 'Titans' would be against their way of warfare. Now look at the range of Tau models out there.

Cheers

Andrew

What makes the tau good is that in universe where every factions go to move is genocide, the Tau are the only one who will say surrender or die. You get a choice with them even if it's not a great one

The Tau, imo, use "The greater Good" as a cover for how they really work. They seem to be like Imperialist America, where "we want you as allies against the other Nations (Races) and if you don't then that's ok (not really)" And they basically go along with their own plans to take over without the civilization's consent. Goes with the "surrender or die" theme that they want you to join them as lower levels of their society, or else you are the enemy.

Tau are pretty Orwellian, it's something that doesn't get used (or used well) in the fluff. It's either shining towers of good will and freindship, or fething mind control worms. The best Orwellian things are subtle, but 40k writers can't do subtle it appears. I liked how in the older codexs there were hints, nothing solid. It was subtle, it was well made. But then we have 6th edition codex which is about as subtle as a brick to the face.

The tau are almost oppressive to an orwellian extreme, but the alternative of the Imperium isn't much better.

Inquisitor Lord Karamazov once immolated an innocent teen simply on suspicion of heresy. While he was (far later) found to be correct, he simply did it on a hunch. And it's implied he's often wrong given by his quote "A plea of Innocence is Guilty of Wasting my Time."

Then there are the hive worlds where the imperium controls. Forget institutional caste systems, these are places where the rich exploit the crap out of the poor, street gangs roam unchecked, and your luckiest alternative is to be scooped up and shipped off world in the Imperial Guard Regiments.

And those are the world where the Imperium actually gives a damn. On Deathworlds, humans have children like rodents because more die to a horrible death than reach maturity. And then there are chaos worlds, where you are the literal plaything of the universe.

Compared to all of that, being told that you're given a job, housing and food by the state and ensured of your position sounds pretty good.

Most of the tau are evil ideas are basically just in the heads of people, but that is because a good ammout about the tau just isn't talked about so there is a lot of room to insert your own take.

Same as every villain, everyone is the hero of their own story. Every race will perceive itself as the best or most good.

 Furyou Miko wrote:

 GKTiberius wrote:
The tau castes aren't social classes, they are occupational classes. Social classes have a hierarchical ranging in which one class is superior in social value in some way to the other. Non of the Tau castes (even that is a misnomer because in Hindu culture the social value of each caste goes up the further up the system you go). Fire caste are not held in higher esteem than water or air or earth, they all just have different functions. The only real division of social class are ethereals and everybody else, which is exactly how old world communism works. The ruling elite is held in higher social value than everyone else.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
also the word communism is synonymous with stalinism because no government has ever achieved a functioning model of true marxist Communism. they have all fallen into autocratic totalitarian regimes.

"Old World Communism"? What does that even mean?

European and Asian communism which used pure command economy principals as opposed to Cuban or Venezuelan communism that allows for some privatization for companies owned by top political individuals to generate money for the government. The later being necessary for the government to function in the globally interdependent modern world, as opposed to the relatively economically isolated one of pre WWII

 AndrewC wrote:
Kroot. Trust is a two way street. It make it clear from the old Kroot army lists that the Kroot don't want to be reliant on the Tau.

I thought I remember reading somewhere that most Kroot don't like using advanced technology (with a notable sub-faction that does whose name escapes me at the moment). There's not much meat left on the bones when you've incinerated your enemies with plasma fire.

 Rainyday wrote:

 AndrewC wrote:
Kroot. Trust is a two way street. It make it clear from the old Kroot army lists that the Kroot don't want to be reliant on the Tau.

I thought I remember reading somewhere that most Kroot don't like using advanced technology (with a notable sub-faction that does whose name escapes me at the moment). There's not much meat left on the bones when you've incinerated your enemies with plasma fire.

Ya a lot of their gear seems more like a cultural choice. Like they have their own spaceships and their own tech. They just don't use it... Then this brings up the question of why they would use the tau's tech? I actually think that pulse upgrade the tau gave them isn't well represented in fluff.

I don't have a source on me but i remember reading something that the Kroot play up the whole omivore savage thing to convince the Tau that they are less advanced than they really are.

Despite what labels are given regarding the "good" vs "evil argument, the fact is the Tau do not exterminate their captives and try to integrate them into their society as useful citizens. Also, every time they initiate contact with a new race the option to join the empire is always extended before military invasion. No other race in 40k does this so Tau are considered "good" when compared this way.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
I don't have a source on me but i remember reading something that the Kroot play up the whole omivore savage thing to convince the Tau that they are less advanced than they really are.

It would not surprise me if that was in the fluff mass somewhere. I know the tau know about kroot ships at least. The only reason we know about kroot ships is because they are in tau fleets. Apart from kroot ships, I can't think of much high tech stuff they have that they didn't get from someone else.