Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Do Tau allow mariages and intercourse between Tau and there auxillaries? Any known Tau x Geuvesa marriages? Or Tau x Kroot? Or maybe Tau x Niccasar? Not even gonna bother asking about the Vespids for obvious reasons. What about marriages between Auxillaries? Like a Guevesa x a Kroot marriage?

As I understand it the Tau are only permitted to breed with their own caste to continue breeding suitable traits into each caste and females might be encouraged to take less active roles in order to pass on their genes.
Which is a fine thank you for Tau like Shadowsun, you spend years fighting for an Empire and they tell you you've done enough it's time for the baby making.

pm713 wrote:
As I understand it the Tau are only permitted to breed with their own caste to continue breeding suitable traits into each caste and females might be encouraged to take less active roles in order to pass on their genes.
Which is a fine thank you for Tau like Shadowsun, you spend years fighting for an Empire and they tell you you've done enough it's time for the baby making.

Arnt Geuvesa usually lumped into the Fire Cast? Same with Kroot. Due to there combat abilitys? And i guess Human Engineers and Architects would be lumped into the Earth Cast. And i think there was a Gievesa Diplomat mentioned in one of the Ciphias Cain novels. Could one of these indivuals marry a Tau or other Auxiliary of the appropriate caste?

Also id assume extremely valuable indivuals like Farsight, Shadowsun, etc etc would be removef from the euegenics program to keep them on the battle field longer where there actually useful. And even if they arnt a quit peaceful life of luxury and child rearing is still far better thanks then waht a lot of imperial "hero's" recieve. Remeber what happend to the 13th Mortant Acid Dogs? Or all the Guardsmen involved in the First Battle of Armageddon (not to mention the Space Wolves that tried to protect them)?

The Tau don't have marriages in the traditional sense. The fire caste in particular instead practice the Ta'lissera ritual or the Bonding Knife ritual. It is a lifelong bond similar to marriage and usually indicates a closer more intimate relationship with their peers. Since gue'vesa serve alongside other fire warriors, I'm almost certain there is at least one human out there who has performed the ta'lissera with their tau squad mates. It's in the lore that the air caste has a direct equivalent to the ta'liserra and that the earth caste and water caste have adapted their own ceremonies over time that are modeled after the fire caste bonding knife ritual.

Kroot however operate as kindred bands led by a shaper. They don't really socialize from what I know of them. I'm sure there are rare elements like the kroot in blackstone fortress who have branched out and acted as scouts and who is to say that a kroot seconded to a pathfinder unit or a water caste diplomat haven't performed the bonding knife ceremony. I don't know enough of the other auxiliary races to know if they interact enough with the castes enough to bond.

We do know from lore that the Tau empire doesn't force the human members of the empire to have forced caste marriages. Humans within the empire are free to live their lives as they see fit, as long as all that they do, they do for the Greater Good.

I thought tau laid eggs for some reason

"Marriage" as an institution seems a fairly human concept to try and project onto the Tau; I'd expect they either have centrally-planned breeding licenses (folks are paired for genetic compatibility by the Ethereals) or they've gotten organic wombs out of the picture entirely and are grown in tanks from donated genetic material like in Brave New World before getting stuffed straight into whatever state education center is required to prepare them for service.

If you were imagining some kind of romantic storyline I'd suggest thinking about it like a medieval courtly romance, where society has certain expectations about the institutions surrounding procreation but is happy to turn a blind eye to whatever its members get up to on the side as long as they're not too blatant about it/don't let it interfere with their duties.

DOW Aux humans where sterilised

Just gonna leave this here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCUL8pL3VrQ

-

 Galef wrote:
Just gonna leave this here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCUL8pL3VrQ

-

A man of culture.
Do tell me, do they also like cyberdongs?

ThatMG wrote:
DOW Aux humans where sterilised

NOT CANON

chimera0205 wrote:

ThatMG wrote:
DOW Aux humans where sterilised

NOT CANON

4th Expansion sphere fluff says otherwise.

chimera0205 wrote:

Also id assume extremely valuable indivuals like Farsight, Shadowsun, etc etc would be removef from the euegenics program to keep them on the battle field longer where there actually useful. And even if they arnt a quit peaceful life of luxury and child rearing is still far better thanks then waht a lot of imperial "hero's" recieve.

I'm hazy on the details, but this was actually kind of addressed in a short story. Shadowsun was off doing Shadowsun things, and the action bits are broken up with her reflecting on the death of her father and sisters and an offer to basically (iirc) go back to the inner tau empire and become a sort of revered teacher/baby maker. Basically, she could choose to either keep on rocking the expansion with the understanding that she'd likely die alone, or she could go have the fire caste version of a calm, domestic life.

Again, I'm hazy on the specifics, but I get the impression from that story and from the Farsight stories that "marriage" and reproduction are kind of separate concepts for the tau. The bonding knife ritual and its equivalents in the other castes seems to be a social ritual that individuals have some choice in. It seems to be a sort of group bonding rather than a pairing. Reproduction, at least for those with sufficient social esteem, seems to be a sort of government-involved duty. Again, the impression I got from the Shadowsun novel was that individuals could be encouraged to accept a domestic position but were technically free to accept or decline it, and part of the reason Shadowsun was being offered the choice to stop war heroing on the front lines was that her family was sufficiently esteemed; the higher ups seemed to like the idea of her bloodline continuing.

But I'm rambling. Would interspecies intercourse be allowed? Provided there aren't any medical concerns, I kind of doubt an ethereal or earth caste doctor or whomever would shut things down. If there's no chance of offspring resulting and mucking up the structured caste system, then it's basically just a matter of what you're doing with your spare time. Heck, a tau courtesan might even work as a specialized sort of water caste, though I'm not sure there's enough call for that in the grim dark xenophobic future for that to really be a thing. Now, whether or not a tau is likely to find flat bear psykers, greasy humans, or bird aliens sexually appealing is a topic I'll leave to the slashfic writers of the internet.

Would "marriage" be allowed? I feel like that would be considered disruptive to the carefully structured caste system. Tau aren't even allowed to marry outside of their caste, so I really doubt they're going to be allowed to marry outside of their species. I don't think alien auxiliaries are really considered to be part of the caste system so much as they're incorporated into tau society as extensions of the castes' "proper" manifestations. Earth Caste probably talk shop with kroot about how to optimize the weapons on war spheres, but I don't think that kroot is walking around being called "fio" (earth prefix) by other tau. Being "between spheres" is a tau term for behaving in a way that crosses the responsibilities of several castes, and it's generally referred to as a bad thing. A tech marine knows how to fight and also builds machines. He's between the spheres of earth and fire, and that's a no-no. Most alien auxiliaries are probably considered to walk between spheres a lot.

tldr; Would they bang? It's maybe not forbidden/taboo, but I'd be a little surprised if recreational sex was a thing that many auxilliary species are into. Would they marry? That seems like a no-no.

No. Ew. Stop.

 martian_jo wrote:
No. Ew. Stop.

Love Can Bloom!

The only instance where I'd see "marriage" as a thing is if it's used as a tool for some purpose.

Say, for instance, that the Tau enter into a commercial venture with a Human world and communications take a long time. It could be practical to have the representative of one party "marry" a leader of the other party for sharing rights and responsibilities in the venture, since that would be a clear legal right to do things "for the family". Whether this also means touchy-feely is up to the persons in question (though I strongly suspect both would consider that deviant behavior).

An interesting subject, at present we frankly know very little about Tau civil society, the universe being as grim as it is, it is hard to see happy interspecies relationships à la Mass Effect being common. However as posted above, the idea of Tau using a cross-species family union or even a romance for an ultimate pragmatic purpose sounds strangely plausable and devious. The Tau must have certainly been taken notes about human behaviour and relations and with that knowledge they could train special members of the water caste to act as empathic and ever amorous partners for high-ranking human individuals that could be swayed to the Greater Good. Of course, A governor would be none to happy to find out that his long running heretical but passionate relationship was nothing but a ruse for the Tau to take charge of his world.

I don't understand why so many people are interested by this: would you marry a dog ? Would you get laid with a monkey ? Then why with a Tau ? They are just another species of different pets.

 godardc wrote:
I don't understand why so many people are interested by this: would you marry a dog ? Would you get laid with a monkey ? Then why with a Tau ? They are just another species of different pets.

Some people would... The less said about that the better

Anyway, a purely political marriage could always happen. For humans, marrying to form alliances has been standard practice for centuries and the tau seem to be pragmatic enough to give it a try. What happens in the bedroom doesn't really matter in that case.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
"Marriage" as an institution seems a fairly human concept to try and project onto the Tau; I'd expect they either have centrally-planned breeding licenses (folks are paired for genetic compatibility by the Ethereals) or they've gotten organic wombs out of the picture entirely and are grown in tanks from donated genetic material like in Brave New World before getting stuffed straight into whatever state education center is required to prepare them for service.

If you were imagining some kind of romantic storyline I'd suggest thinking about it like a medieval courtly romance, where society has certain expectations about the institutions surrounding procreation but is happy to turn a blind eye to whatever its members get up to on the side as long as they're not too blatant about it/don't let it interfere with their duties.

This. If I remember correctly, Tau outside the Fire Caste usually have their mates chosen for them, and they are granted a "holiday" to get together and "do the dirty" in order to make little Tau. But the pairing isn't lifelong and the kids are usually raised in community creches


And, if I'm not mistaken, cross-caste eloping and fooling around is strictly forbidden for Tau.

In the greater evil we follow a female Earth caster and she chooses her mating partner.

They do not. Now please report to the nearest commissar.

 Hawky wrote:
They do not. Now please report to the nearest commissar.

Im on a Tau Cept world a couple thousand light years from the nearest Imperium Planet. Finding a Commisar will be a challenge

chimera0205 wrote:

 Hawky wrote:
They do not. Now please report to the nearest commissar.

Im on a Tau Cept world a couple thousand light years from the nearest Imperium Planet. Finding a Commisar will be a challenge

You're lying. A true Gue'vesa would know it's spelled Sept not Cept. The commissar will be at your house momentarily heretic.

They do not. In general, recently I have started to be interested in the relationship between a man and a woman and psychology. It all started with the fact that I decided to start reading divorce books and I was interested in why people in relationships do this or that. Now I read various psychological books that help me understand the behavior of men and women. I always dreamed of becoming a psychologist, but when I went to university, my mother forced me to become a lawyer. I haven't worked a day as a lawyer and I think it's time to make my dream come true.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
They do not.

 Tiennos wrote:

 godardc wrote:
I don't understand why so many people are interested by this: would you marry a dog ? Would you get laid with a monkey ? Then why with a Tau ? They are just another species of different pets.

Some people would... The less said about that the better

Anyway, a purely political marriage could always happen. For humans, marrying to form alliances has been standard practice for centuries and the tau seem to be pragmatic enough to give it a try. What happens in the bedroom doesn't really matter in that case.

And also. In a lot of sci fi with many alien races.
Relationships between species is a thing.

Only reason it’s less so In 40K I’d because everyone hates everyone.

They do not.

 godardc wrote:
I don't understand why so many people are interested by this: would you marry a dog ? Would you get laid with a monkey ? Then why with a Tau ? They are just another species of different pets.

Is the distinction between a relationship with a sentient partner and a non-sentient partner a difficult one to grasp here?