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I've never understood how people can seriously argue this point. Like I know Mind Control and Sterilization but like have you never met the Inquisition or the Ecclearchy? Yeah sure the Tau control almost every aspect of your life but at least in the Tau your life has value. Your not gonna see any Tau Fire warriors just shoot you for gaks and giggles and your definitely never gonna see any Tau Fleet blow up a bunch of LOYAL Tau planets for the sole sin of having the audacity to be in the general direction a Tyranid Hive Fleet was heading in. (fething Kryptman.) Both empires are incredibly totalitarian and you have litterally no rights or freedoms on either an yeah sure you might have a TINY itty bitty bit more freedom on SOME imperial worlds but is that tiny amount of maybe extra freedom IF ypur lucky enough to be born on the right planet out weight the massive cost in value to your government and massive increase in disposability? I don't think it is. And please for Terras sake don't just reply by screaming Heresy. Im trying to have a actual conversation here.

They are morally superior because they do what has to be done, not what they want to do or what pleases them, in order to save the whole species while fighting gods of Hell.
While Tau think they are better by doing the exact same errors as the Imperium's ancestors trying to prove how much better they are then everyone else just by being ignorant of the truth of the galaxy.

Generally the Imperium makes no pretense about it's ruthlessness where as the Tau may appear to be guided by ideals and morals, but they ultimately act in conflict with said ideals quite often. Many prefer the indiscriminate and open brutality of the Imperium over the more selective and hypocritical ways of Tau, a fairly texbook instance of "better the devil you know".

Admittedly, many of the darker sides of Tau society are implied, and there are enough contradictions in the background material that the true nature of Tau society is largely ambiguous. Generally speaking though most people catch on to the idea that while the Tau appear morally and ethically superior to the Imperium, there is a large 'but' hanging underneath them which generates distrust simply by being an unkown factor.

 godardc wrote:
They are morally superior because they do what has to be done, not what they want to do or what pleases them, in order to save the whole species while fighting gods of Hell.
While Tau think they are better by doing the exact same errors as the Imperium's ancestors trying to prove how much better they are then everyone else just by being ignorant of the truth of the galaxy.

Yeah but the Imperium doesn't HAVE to do what it does. A happy content population is less likely to fall to choas then a beaten and oppressed one. I mean the Eldar had a standard og living surpassing even the Tau and if they had a shorter lifespan theyd still be the dominant species to this day. Even the emperor knew that. You think the emperor dreamt of a despotic imperium that blows up loyal planets for just mearly being in the path of an enemy. The thing that killed the Eldar wasnt some great folley or flaw in there system of goverment. It was pure and simple biology. The fact that the damn knife ears practically live forever is what doomed there species. Cause it meant that eventually theyd get bored and just start murderfucking to get any enjoyment out of there lives. Litterally the ONLY thing that would have been needed to prevent the fall of the Eldar indefinitely would been a finite lifespan. Thats it. There is no rule of the universe that says that you must have 99.99 percent of your population live short miserable meaningless lives. The Eldar even with there inevitable doom pre written into there very DNA maintained a successful galactic empire for far far longer then humanity has even existed with a standard of living that makes even the richest of imperial nobles loom like a poor hive worlder. You can have a galatic empire without beint a dick. The imperium arnt hard men doing what they have to. There just people being dicks when there is no need to be dicks.

coz of this-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptZVtMQIwZ0

"MY FASCISM IS BETTER THAN YOUR FASCISM"

"NO, MY FASCISM IS BETTER THAN YOUR FASCISM!"

Never change dakka.

No no no, both fascim are bad , Sterling. But in universe, the Imperium is objectively stated as the last and only way for humanity to survive. It's like the very first page of 40k...
Why the Tau are in their way to Doom.

The ruthless of the imperium is necessary in universe. People have to be ignorant and to work almost all of their life in order to avoid perilous knowledge and sedition and democracy that could tear apart the Imperium and render worlds vulnerable to aliens attacks.
A single individual can doom a whole world in this universe. What if people knew the devil was real and actually listened to you ? And was willing to give you everything ?
And even without speaking about Chaos, Mankind really is under attack by countless of xenos species. It's a never ending war needing always more men, amunitions, etc.

Even if the Emperor was objectively a tyrant, sure, he was doing it to guide mankind through it's psychic Awakening. No Emperor ? Death of mankind.

For this story of planets destroyed, yeah sure it's bad to kill innocent people but each one of them would have been eaten by bugs and be made into even more bugs eating even more people. Do you want a few billions innocents dead a several hundred of billion of dead ? And remember Kryptman was excommunicate traitorous after that. So the imperium may share your point of view !

And that the interesting point of the universe: they are bad people, objectively. But they are right to be bad. The universe is such that practice like these one are merely survival

For me at least it is less a "the Imperium is better" and more a "the Tau's argument for being better is not very strong". The main point in my opinion (!) is that the Tau act under completely different circumstances that "shield" them (at least so far) from influences that lead to the worst attrocities of the Imperium:

1. No natural occuring psykers
=> the Imperium has to handle the ongoing birth of millions of psykers on their worlds, which by nature are at risk of being influenced or even possessed by demons. The Tau do not
2. No ability/ low need for warp travel
=> due to its size the Imperium needs FTL travel and has no access to something not involving the warp. The Tau empire is small enough that they do not neccessarily have to enter the warp
3. No intense interaction with chaos.
=> the Imperium has a Warp rift spanning literally all through ist center and due to its history with the traitor legions, and their warp presence the Chaos gods and their worshippers continuously try to invade/perverse parts of the Imperium. The Tau have not encountered that amount of attention yet.
Taken together these three points alone lead to a lot of the darker parts of the Imperiums activities and I sometimes wonder how the Tau would fare if they encountered a similiar ongoing contact with Chaos for 10 Millenia.

One could go on about other forces (Orks, Necrons, Tyranids) also having a lot more contact with the Imperium than with the Tau often arising in situations were the Imperium has to handle multiple big threads at once leading to things like Kryptmans actions which I (again: personal opinion) saw mainly as act to buy the Imperium time to react.
Things are complicated more by the vast size of the empire and their reluctance to develop and invent high end Technology, which is also rooted in their history.

I guess my point could be summarized as:
Are the Tau morally better as the Imperium: A cautious yes at the moment
Would they still be if they had a similar attention of Chaos, Necrons and Orks? I think no
Would they be able to have this moral high ground if they were faced with things like a Psykers, the NEED for warp travel, the Astronomicon? I personally think no.

VAYASEN wrote:
coz of this-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptZVtMQIwZ0

Funnily enough I actually had a conversation with Luetin about this very subject and he actually admitted that as bad as the Tau are they are still a paradise compared to most Imperium worlds.

 godardc wrote:
No no no, both fascim are bad , Sterling. But in universe, the Imperium is objectively stated as the last and only way for humanity to survive. It's like the very first page of 40k...

And its a lie.

But please, continue on your apologist tour for interstellar space nazis.

 godardc wrote:

And even without speaking about Chaos, Mankind really is under attack by countless of xenos species. It's a never ending war needing always more men, amunitions, etc.

Many of those aliens only attack the Imperium because the Imperium attacked them first and the Imperium has xenophobia as law which prevents the possibility of actually coming to terms with the other species in the galaxy and build lasting diplomatic ties.

Pyroalchi wrote:
For me at least it is less a "the Imperium is better" and more a "the Tau's argument for being better is not very strong". The main point in my opinion (!) is that the Tau act under completely different circumstances that "shield" them (at least so far) from influences that lead to the worst attrocities of the Imperium:

1. No natural occuring psykers
=> the Imperium has to handle the ongoing birth of millions of psykers on their worlds, which by nature are at risk of being influenced or even possessed by demons. The Tau do not
2. No ability/ low need for warp travel
=> due to its size the Imperium needs FTL travel and has no access to something not involving the warp. The Tau empire is small enough that they do not neccessarily have to enter the warp
3. No intense interaction with chaos.
=> the Imperium has a Warp rift spanning literally all through ist center and due to its history with the traitor legions, and their warp presence the Chaos gods and their worshippers continuously try to invade/perverse parts of the Imperium. The Tau have not encountered that amount of attention yet.
Taken together these three points alone lead to a lot of the darker parts of the Imperiums activities and I sometimes wonder how the Tau would fare if they encountered a similiar ongoing contact with Chaos for 10 Millenia.

One could go on about other forces (Orks, Necrons, Tyranids) also having a lot more contact with the Imperium than with the Tau often arising in situations were the Imperium has to handle multiple big threads at once leading to things like Kryptmans actions which I (again: personal opinion) saw mainly as act to buy the Imperium time to react.
Things are complicated more by the vast size of the empire and their reluctance to develop and invent high end Technology, which is also rooted in their history.

I guess my point could be summarized as:
Are the Tau morally better as the Imperium: A cautious yes at the moment
Would they still be if they had a similar attention of Chaos, Necrons and Orks? I think no
Would they be able to have this moral high ground if they were faced with things like a Psykers, the NEED for warp travel, the Astronomicon? I personally think no.

As for no naturally occuring Psykers that just straight up false. While the Tau Species doesnt have any naturally occuring psykers the Tau Empire probably has more per capita then the Imperium given that several minor Tau races are made up of nothing but psykers. Most notably the Niccasar.

As for other forces once again per capita the Tau have gone through more bs on there short time the galactic stage than any similar sized grouping of imperial worlds bar maybe the worlds around Cadia. I mean in just a thousand years theyve had to fight several wars woth the Imperium including a small Crusade. An entire Hive Fleet. At least two necron tomb worlds that I know of, multiple ork Waaghh etc etc etc. And the tau only have like a 100 planets including all the really small colonies and listening posts. You name any grouping of 100 Imperial planets other then Cadia that has had to deal with that much BS in such a short period of time.

Pyroalchi wrote:
For me at least it is less a "the Imperium is better" and more a "the Tau's argument for being better is not very strong". The main point in my opinion (!) is that the Tau act under completely different circumstances that "shield" them (at least so far) from influences that lead to the worst attrocities of the Imperium:

1. No natural occuring psykers
=> the Imperium has to handle the ongoing birth of millions of psykers on their worlds, which by nature are at risk of being influenced or even possessed by demons. The Tau do not
2. No ability/ low need for warp travel
=> due to its size the Imperium needs FTL travel and has no access to something not involving the warp. The Tau empire is small enough that they do not neccessarily have to enter the warp
3. No intense interaction with chaos.
=> the Imperium has a Warp rift spanning literally all through ist center and due to its history with the traitor legions, and their warp presence the Chaos gods and their worshippers continuously try to invade/perverse parts of the Imperium. The Tau have not encountered that amount of attention yet.
Taken together these three points alone lead to a lot of the darker parts of the Imperiums activities and I sometimes wonder how the Tau would fare if they encountered a similiar ongoing contact with Chaos for 10 Millenia.

One could go on about other forces (Orks, Necrons, Tyranids) also having a lot more contact with the Imperium than with the Tau often arising in situations were the Imperium has to handle multiple big threads at once leading to things like Kryptmans actions which I (again: personal opinion) saw mainly as act to buy the Imperium time to react.
Things are complicated more by the vast size of the empire and their reluctance to develop and invent high end Technology, which is also rooted in their history.

I guess my point could be summarized as:
Are the Tau morally better as the Imperium: A cautious yes at the moment
Would they still be if they had a similar attention of Chaos, Necrons and Orks? I think no
Would they be able to have this moral high ground if they were faced with things like a Psykers, the NEED for warp travel, the Astronomicon? I personally think no.

The Tau also have to deal with a smaller population.
Imaging trying to control over a trillion people, any of which may be a genestealer or a chaos cultist. Try playing gentle then.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Pyroalchi wrote:
For me at least it is less a "the Imperium is better" and more a "the Tau's argument for being better is not very strong". The main point in my opinion (!) is that the Tau act under completely different circumstances that "shield" them (at least so far) from influences that lead to the worst attrocities of the Imperium:

1. No natural occuring psykers
=> the Imperium has to handle the ongoing birth of millions of psykers on their worlds, which by nature are at risk of being influenced or even possessed by demons. The Tau do not
2. No ability/ low need for warp travel
=> due to its size the Imperium needs FTL travel and has no access to something not involving the warp. The Tau empire is small enough that they do not neccessarily have to enter the warp
3. No intense interaction with chaos.
=> the Imperium has a Warp rift spanning literally all through ist center and due to its history with the traitor legions, and their warp presence the Chaos gods and their worshippers continuously try to invade/perverse parts of the Imperium. The Tau have not encountered that amount of attention yet.
Taken together these three points alone lead to a lot of the darker parts of the Imperiums activities and I sometimes wonder how the Tau would fare if they encountered a similiar ongoing contact with Chaos for 10 Millenia.

One could go on about other forces (Orks, Necrons, Tyranids) also having a lot more contact with the Imperium than with the Tau often arising in situations were the Imperium has to handle multiple big threads at once leading to things like Kryptmans actions which I (again: personal opinion) saw mainly as act to buy the Imperium time to react.
Things are complicated more by the vast size of the empire and their reluctance to develop and invent high end Technology, which is also rooted in their history.

I guess my point could be summarized as:
Are the Tau morally better as the Imperium: A cautious yes at the moment
Would they still be if they had a similar attention of Chaos, Necrons and Orks? I think no
Would they be able to have this moral high ground if they were faced with things like a Psykers, the NEED for warp travel, the Astronomicon? I personally think no.

The Tau also have to deal with a smaller population.
Imaging trying to control over a trillion people, any of which may be a genestealer or a chaos cultist. Try playing gentle then.

Assuming the need for central authorithy.

Something something rousseau, estimating that power corelates to area and population covered by it, needing power to be more centralized the more people you need to controll, leading to a inherently more tyrannical system.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Pyroalchi wrote:
For me at least it is less a "the Imperium is better" and more a "the Tau's argument for being better is not very strong". The main point in my opinion (!) is that the Tau act under completely different circumstances that "shield" them (at least so far) from influences that lead to the worst attrocities of the Imperium:

1. No natural occuring psykers
=> the Imperium has to handle the ongoing birth of millions of psykers on their worlds, which by nature are at risk of being influenced or even possessed by demons. The Tau do not
2. No ability/ low need for warp travel
=> due to its size the Imperium needs FTL travel and has no access to something not involving the warp. The Tau empire is small enough that they do not neccessarily have to enter the warp
3. No intense interaction with chaos.
=> the Imperium has a Warp rift spanning literally all through ist center and due to its history with the traitor legions, and their warp presence the Chaos gods and their worshippers continuously try to invade/perverse parts of the Imperium. The Tau have not encountered that amount of attention yet.
Taken together these three points alone lead to a lot of the darker parts of the Imperiums activities and I sometimes wonder how the Tau would fare if they encountered a similiar ongoing contact with Chaos for 10 Millenia.

One could go on about other forces (Orks, Necrons, Tyranids) also having a lot more contact with the Imperium than with the Tau often arising in situations were the Imperium has to handle multiple big threads at once leading to things like Kryptmans actions which I (again: personal opinion) saw mainly as act to buy the Imperium time to react.
Things are complicated more by the vast size of the empire and their reluctance to develop and invent high end Technology, which is also rooted in their history.

I guess my point could be summarized as:
Are the Tau morally better as the Imperium: A cautious yes at the moment
Would they still be if they had a similar attention of Chaos, Necrons and Orks? I think no
Would they be able to have this moral high ground if they were faced with things like a Psykers, the NEED for warp travel, the Astronomicon? I personally think no.

The Tau also have to deal with a smaller population.
Imaging trying to control over a trillion people, any of which may be a genestealer or a chaos cultist. Try playing gentle then.

The Eldar pull it off just fine. Im sure the current Eldar population is over a trillion. And there entire race is nothing but psykers. Name one Choas Eldar.

chimera0205 wrote:

Pyroalchi wrote:
For me at least it is less a "the Imperium is better" and more a "the Tau's argument for being better is not very strong". The main point in my opinion (!) is that the Tau act under completely different circumstances that "shield" them (at least so far) from influences that lead to the worst attrocities of the Imperium:

1. No natural occuring psykers
=> the Imperium has to handle the ongoing birth of millions of psykers on their worlds, which by nature are at risk of being influenced or even possessed by demons. The Tau do not
2. No ability/ low need for warp travel
=> due to its size the Imperium needs FTL travel and has no access to something not involving the warp. The Tau empire is small enough that they do not neccessarily have to enter the warp
3. No intense interaction with chaos.
=> the Imperium has a Warp rift spanning literally all through ist center and due to its history with the traitor legions, and their warp presence the Chaos gods and their worshippers continuously try to invade/perverse parts of the Imperium. The Tau have not encountered that amount of attention yet.
Taken together these three points alone lead to a lot of the darker parts of the Imperiums activities and I sometimes wonder how the Tau would fare if they encountered a similiar ongoing contact with Chaos for 10 Millenia.

One could go on about other forces (Orks, Necrons, Tyranids) also having a lot more contact with the Imperium than with the Tau often arising in situations were the Imperium has to handle multiple big threads at once leading to things like Kryptmans actions which I (again: personal opinion) saw mainly as act to buy the Imperium time to react.
Things are complicated more by the vast size of the empire and their reluctance to develop and invent high end Technology, which is also rooted in their history.

I guess my point could be summarized as:
Are the Tau morally better as the Imperium: A cautious yes at the moment
Would they still be if they had a similar attention of Chaos, Necrons and Orks? I think no
Would they be able to have this moral high ground if they were faced with things like a Psykers, the NEED for warp travel, the Astronomicon? I personally think no.

As for no naturally occuring Psykers that just straight up false. While the Tau Species doesnt have any naturally occuring psykers the Tau Empire probably has more per capita then the Imperium given that several minor Tau races are made up of nothing but psykers. Most notably the Niccasar.

As for other forces once again per capita the Tau have gone through more bs on there short time the galactic stage than any similar sized grouping of imperial worlds bar maybe the worlds around Cadia. I mean in just a thousand years theyve had to fight several wars woth the Imperium including a small Crusade. An entire Hive Fleet. At least two necron tomb worlds that I know of, multiple ork Waaghh etc etc etc. And the tau only have like a 100 planets including all the really small colonies and listening posts. You name any grouping of 100 Imperial planets other then Cadia that has had to deal with that much BS in such a short period of time.

Didn't those battles take place really close to Tau territory, where they can quickly reinforce and resupply defending forces? That's not the same problem the Imperium has, where their supply lines are really drawn thin due to the absurd number of planets they have control over.

Also, aren't agri-worlds and pleasure worlds a thing in Imperial Space?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

chimera0205 wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Pyroalchi wrote:
For me at least it is less a "the Imperium is better" and more a "the Tau's argument for being better is not very strong". The main point in my opinion (!) is that the Tau act under completely different circumstances that "shield" them (at least so far) from influences that lead to the worst attrocities of the Imperium:

1. No natural occuring psykers
=> the Imperium has to handle the ongoing birth of millions of psykers on their worlds, which by nature are at risk of being influenced or even possessed by demons. The Tau do not
2. No ability/ low need for warp travel
=> due to its size the Imperium needs FTL travel and has no access to something not involving the warp. The Tau empire is small enough that they do not neccessarily have to enter the warp
3. No intense interaction with chaos.
=> the Imperium has a Warp rift spanning literally all through ist center and due to its history with the traitor legions, and their warp presence the Chaos gods and their worshippers continuously try to invade/perverse parts of the Imperium. The Tau have not encountered that amount of attention yet.
Taken together these three points alone lead to a lot of the darker parts of the Imperiums activities and I sometimes wonder how the Tau would fare if they encountered a similiar ongoing contact with Chaos for 10 Millenia.

One could go on about other forces (Orks, Necrons, Tyranids) also having a lot more contact with the Imperium than with the Tau often arising in situations were the Imperium has to handle multiple big threads at once leading to things like Kryptmans actions which I (again: personal opinion) saw mainly as act to buy the Imperium time to react.
Things are complicated more by the vast size of the empire and their reluctance to develop and invent high end Technology, which is also rooted in their history.

I guess my point could be summarized as:
Are the Tau morally better as the Imperium: A cautious yes at the moment
Would they still be if they had a similar attention of Chaos, Necrons and Orks? I think no
Would they be able to have this moral high ground if they were faced with things like a Psykers, the NEED for warp travel, the Astronomicon? I personally think no.

The Tau also have to deal with a smaller population.
Imaging trying to control over a trillion people, any of which may be a genestealer or a chaos cultist. Try playing gentle then.

The Eldar pull it off just fine. Im sure the current Eldar population is over a trillion. And there entire race is nothing but psykers. Name one Choas Eldar.

Pretty sure its less than a trillion. They also get eaten by Slaanesh if they fall to chaos, because apparently Slaanesh has a monopoly on their souls. Hence the whole path system.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

chimera0205 wrote:

Pyroalchi wrote:
For me at least it is less a "the Imperium is better" and more a "the Tau's argument for being better is not very strong". The main point in my opinion (!) is that the Tau act under completely different circumstances that "shield" them (at least so far) from influences that lead to the worst attrocities of the Imperium:

1. No natural occuring psykers
=> the Imperium has to handle the ongoing birth of millions of psykers on their worlds, which by nature are at risk of being influenced or even possessed by demons. The Tau do not
2. No ability/ low need for warp travel
=> due to its size the Imperium needs FTL travel and has no access to something not involving the warp. The Tau empire is small enough that they do not neccessarily have to enter the warp
3. No intense interaction with chaos.
=> the Imperium has a Warp rift spanning literally all through ist center and due to its history with the traitor legions, and their warp presence the Chaos gods and their worshippers continuously try to invade/perverse parts of the Imperium. The Tau have not encountered that amount of attention yet.
Taken together these three points alone lead to a lot of the darker parts of the Imperiums activities and I sometimes wonder how the Tau would fare if they encountered a similiar ongoing contact with Chaos for 10 Millenia.

One could go on about other forces (Orks, Necrons, Tyranids) also having a lot more contact with the Imperium than with the Tau often arising in situations were the Imperium has to handle multiple big threads at once leading to things like Kryptmans actions which I (again: personal opinion) saw mainly as act to buy the Imperium time to react.
Things are complicated more by the vast size of the empire and their reluctance to develop and invent high end Technology, which is also rooted in their history.

I guess my point could be summarized as:
Are the Tau morally better as the Imperium: A cautious yes at the moment
Would they still be if they had a similar attention of Chaos, Necrons and Orks? I think no
Would they be able to have this moral high ground if they were faced with things like a Psykers, the NEED for warp travel, the Astronomicon? I personally think no.

As for no naturally occuring Psykers that just straight up false. While the Tau Species doesnt have any naturally occuring psykers the Tau Empire probably has more per capita then the Imperium given that several minor Tau races are made up of nothing but psykers. Most notably the Niccasar.

As for other forces once again per capita the Tau have gone through more bs on there short time the galactic stage than any similar sized grouping of imperial worlds bar maybe the worlds around Cadia. I mean in just a thousand years theyve had to fight several wars woth the Imperium including a small Crusade. An entire Hive Fleet. At least two necron tomb worlds that I know of, multiple ork Waaghh etc etc etc. And the tau only have like a 100 planets including all the really small colonies and listening posts. You name any grouping of 100 Imperial planets other then Cadia that has had to deal with that much BS in such a short period of time.

Didn't those battles take place really close to Tau territory, where they can quickly reinforce and resupply defending forces? That's not the same problem the Imperium has, where their supply lines are really drawn thin due to the absurd number of planets they have control over.

Also, aren't agri-worlds and pleasure worlds a thing in Imperial Space?

That's there fault for over stretching themselves. Had they expanded slowly and controllably tjey wouldnt have that problem. Instead they decided to just fly around the galaxy screaming MINE MINE MINE MINE to any vaguely habitable planet they could find like the sea gulls from Nemo. The fact that the Imperium is slowed is not the fault the average hive worlder and said hive worlefer2 shouldnt be left to die.cause his glorious emeporor doesn't understand basic logistics and strategy

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 godardc wrote:

And even without speaking about Chaos, Mankind really is under attack by countless of xenos species. It's a never ending war needing always more men, amunitions, etc.

Many of those aliens only attack the Imperium because the Imperium attacked them first and the Imperium has xenophobia as law which prevents the possibility of actually coming to terms with the other species in the galaxy and build lasting diplomatic ties.

Because, in universe, the vast majority of the xenos species ARE enemy of mankind. Planet Murder ? Orks ? (Dark) eldars ? Rak'gol ? The tyranids even crossed interstellar void to come and eat them !
Even the nice and gentle Tau are just space invaders who let you no choice but to bend the knee or be destroyed. Ofc one or two species didn't deserve the death sentence, but neither did the Tau when they were first discovered. Look at them now.

 godardc wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 godardc wrote:

And even without speaking about Chaos, Mankind really is under attack by countless of xenos species. It's a never ending war needing always more men, amunitions, etc.

Many of those aliens only attack the Imperium because the Imperium attacked them first and the Imperium has xenophobia as law which prevents the possibility of actually coming to terms with the other species in the galaxy and build lasting diplomatic ties.

Because, in universe, the vast majority of the xenos species ARE enemy of mankind. Planet Murder ? Orks ? (Dark) eldars ? Rak'gol ? The tyranids even crossed interstellar void to come and eat them !
Even the nice and gentle Tau are just space invaders who let you no choice but to bend the knee or be destroyed. Ofc one or two species didn't deserve the death sentence, but neither did the Tau when they were first discovered. Look at them now.

What about the Eldar? What does the Imperium actually get out of attacking Exodite Worlds and ravaging Maiden Worlds?

chimera0205 wrote:

 godardc wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 godardc wrote:

And even without speaking about Chaos, Mankind really is under attack by countless of xenos species. It's a never ending war needing always more men, amunitions, etc.

Many of those aliens only attack the Imperium because the Imperium attacked them first and the Imperium has xenophobia as law which prevents the possibility of actually coming to terms with the other species in the galaxy and build lasting diplomatic ties.

Because, in universe, the vast majority of the xenos species ARE enemy of mankind. Planet Murder ? Orks ? (Dark) eldars ? Rak'gol ? The tyranids even crossed interstellar void to come and eat them !
Even the nice and gentle Tau are just space invaders who let you no choice but to bend the knee or be destroyed. Ofc one or two species didn't deserve the death sentence, but neither did the Tau when they were first discovered. Look at them now.

What about the Eldar? What does the Imperium actually get out of attacking Exodite Worlds and ravaging Maiden Worlds?

Resources? Pretty sure those are great for agri-worlds.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

chimera0205 wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

chimera0205 wrote:

Pyroalchi wrote:
For me at least it is less a "the Imperium is better" and more a "the Tau's argument for being better is not very strong". The main point in my opinion (!) is that the Tau act under completely different circumstances that "shield" them (at least so far) from influences that lead to the worst attrocities of the Imperium:

1. No natural occuring psykers
=> the Imperium has to handle the ongoing birth of millions of psykers on their worlds, which by nature are at risk of being influenced or even possessed by demons. The Tau do not
2. No ability/ low need for warp travel
=> due to its size the Imperium needs FTL travel and has no access to something not involving the warp. The Tau empire is small enough that they do not neccessarily have to enter the warp
3. No intense interaction with chaos.
=> the Imperium has a Warp rift spanning literally all through ist center and due to its history with the traitor legions, and their warp presence the Chaos gods and their worshippers continuously try to invade/perverse parts of the Imperium. The Tau have not encountered that amount of attention yet.
Taken together these three points alone lead to a lot of the darker parts of the Imperiums activities and I sometimes wonder how the Tau would fare if they encountered a similiar ongoing contact with Chaos for 10 Millenia.

One could go on about other forces (Orks, Necrons, Tyranids) also having a lot more contact with the Imperium than with the Tau often arising in situations were the Imperium has to handle multiple big threads at once leading to things like Kryptmans actions which I (again: personal opinion) saw mainly as act to buy the Imperium time to react.
Things are complicated more by the vast size of the empire and their reluctance to develop and invent high end Technology, which is also rooted in their history.

I guess my point could be summarized as:
Are the Tau morally better as the Imperium: A cautious yes at the moment
Would they still be if they had a similar attention of Chaos, Necrons and Orks? I think no
Would they be able to have this moral high ground if they were faced with things like a Psykers, the NEED for warp travel, the Astronomicon? I personally think no.

As for no naturally occuring Psykers that just straight up false. While the Tau Species doesnt have any naturally occuring psykers the Tau Empire probably has more per capita then the Imperium given that several minor Tau races are made up of nothing but psykers. Most notably the Niccasar.

As for other forces once again per capita the Tau have gone through more bs on there short time the galactic stage than any similar sized grouping of imperial worlds bar maybe the worlds around Cadia. I mean in just a thousand years theyve had to fight several wars woth the Imperium including a small Crusade. An entire Hive Fleet. At least two necron tomb worlds that I know of, multiple ork Waaghh etc etc etc. And the tau only have like a 100 planets including all the really small colonies and listening posts. You name any grouping of 100 Imperial planets other then Cadia that has had to deal with that much BS in such a short period of time.

Didn't those battles take place really close to Tau territory, where they can quickly reinforce and resupply defending forces? That's not the same problem the Imperium has, where their supply lines are really drawn thin due to the absurd number of planets they have control over.

Also, aren't agri-worlds and pleasure worlds a thing in Imperial Space?

That's there fault for over stretching themselves. Had they expanded slowly and controllably tjey wouldnt have that problem. Instead they decided to just fly around the galaxy screaming MINE MINE MINE MINE to any vaguely habitable planet they could find like the sea gulls from Nemo. The fact that the Imperium is slowed is not the fault the average hive worlder and said hive worlefer2 shouldnt be left to die.cause his glorious emeporor doesn't understand basic logistics and strategy

They did expand slowly. A lot of those worlds in the Imperium were first colonized during the Age of Technology, which was sometime in the 15th millenium. The Great Crusade was to reclaim human inhabited sectors that were lost during the Age of Strife. The Emperor's plan was to eventually take control of the webway, which would solve all sorts of logistics problems...which was ruined when Magnus had his "I'm HELPING!" moment.
The Tau have only been around for about 6000 years. Which is impressive for a space faring race, hence the fan theories that they had outside help.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Pyroalchi wrote:
For me at least it is less a "the Imperium is better" and more a "the Tau's argument for being better is not very strong". The main point in my opinion (!) is that the Tau act under completely different circumstances that "shield" them (at least so far) from influences that lead to the worst attrocities of the Imperium:

1. No natural occuring psykers
=> the Imperium has to handle the ongoing birth of millions of psykers on their worlds, which by nature are at risk of being influenced or even possessed by demons. The Tau do not
2. No ability/ low need for warp travel
=> due to its size the Imperium needs FTL travel and has no access to something not involving the warp. The Tau empire is small enough that they do not neccessarily have to enter the warp
3. No intense interaction with chaos.
=> the Imperium has a Warp rift spanning literally all through ist center and due to its history with the traitor legions, and their warp presence the Chaos gods and their worshippers continuously try to invade/perverse parts of the Imperium. The Tau have not encountered that amount of attention yet.
Taken together these three points alone lead to a lot of the darker parts of the Imperiums activities and I sometimes wonder how the Tau would fare if they encountered a similiar ongoing contact with Chaos for 10 Millenia.

One could go on about other forces (Orks, Necrons, Tyranids) also having a lot more contact with the Imperium than with the Tau often arising in situations were the Imperium has to handle multiple big threads at once leading to things like Kryptmans actions which I (again: personal opinion) saw mainly as act to buy the Imperium time to react.
Things are complicated more by the vast size of the empire and their reluctance to develop and invent high end Technology, which is also rooted in their history.

I guess my point could be summarized as:
Are the Tau morally better as the Imperium: A cautious yes at the moment
Would they still be if they had a similar attention of Chaos, Necrons and Orks? I think no
Would they be able to have this moral high ground if they were faced with things like a Psykers, the NEED for warp travel, the Astronomicon? I personally think no.

The Tau also have to deal with a smaller population.
Imaging trying to control over a trillion people, any of which may be a genestealer or a chaos cultist. Try playing gentle then.

Assuming the need for central authorithy.

Something something rousseau, estimating that power corelates to area and population covered by it, needing power to be more centralized the more people you need to controll, leading to a inherently more tyrannical system.

Funnily enough, the Imperium isn't really centralized. As long as a planetary governor pays tithes and obeys the Imperial Creed, the Imperium really doesn't care what happens on that world...which has the unfortunate side effect of planetary governors getting away with all sorts of horrible gak, as long as they make the bureaucrats and accountants happy.

Part of the Imperium's schtick is that it has *forgotten* how not to be crappy. That's a fundamental part of the schtick, the 40k setting is the dark age of a crumbling edifice.

The Imperium is the rickety remnants of the broken dream of a nearly dead god held on eternal tortured life support for 10,000 years. The person in charge is out to lunch and the kiddies have been running amok.

They *could* be better, and that's always been part of the tragedy of the setting, nobody remembers how to be better, and those few that do aren't in any position to do anything about it or have vested interests in seeing the status quo remain.

As for the Eldar, let's remember they're a slowly dwindling dying race that lives in perpetual terror of their souls being devoured and this shapes every facet of their existence, turning to their own death cults just as the Imperium does.

I think it would be hard to argue that the Tau are more "evil" or "tyrannical" than the Imperium, or that the Imperium is morally "superior", the game background really does highlight the positivity and good intentions of the Tau, but in the 40k universe this is graded on a curve...because the universe is so terrible that you really can't have totally good guys, and both the Tau and the Imperium get passes on a lot as a result.

It also doesn't help that people like to project real world political facets onto these factions, sometimes subconsciously, sometimes not so much.

Eh, give the Tau another 20,000 years, an AI uprising, a population numbering in the trillions (apparently the population of the IoM is actually meant to be a few quadrillion. No one really is really sure, just that they have a stupidly huge population, based on the implication that they have over a million worlds under their control) and a galaxy where everything either hates them or wants to eat them. Let's see them try to be better off.

We all know Orks are the true good guys of the setting anyway. They really just want to have a good time.

@ Chimera 0205: just so that you don't get my tone wrong: I also think the imperium is definitly not morally better then the Tau, I just think the Tau should put the things the Imperium does in perspective and reflect a bit more about what they would do if they had been in their place.
To react to your separate points directed at me:

As for no naturally occuring Psykers that just straight up false. While the Tau Species doesnt have any naturally occuring psykers the Tau Empire probably has more per capita then the Imperium given that several minor Tau races are made up of nothing but psykers. Most notably the Niccasar.

The Eldar pull it off just fine. Im sure the current Eldar population is over a trillion. And there entire race is nothing but psykers. Name one Choas Eldar.

fair enough, I realize I formulated my point inconsequently: Neither the Tau nor the Eldar have to handle a large population of Psykers that have a notorious bad history in resisting chaos. The Eldar have born a chaos good in the past and Camoragh is not Sunshine-and-rainbow land but you are totally right, that I cannot name any Chaos Eldar. Simultanously I have read so little about the psychic Tau client species that I also cannot claim to have ever heard about one of them turning to chaos. Not even Orks seem to have that unstable psykers (or better: they blow themselves up before turning to Chaos). But with humans: there are a LOT of examples were unattended or unsanctioned Psykers have fallen to chaos and even the most educated and trained minds are often enough corrupted. Maybe it has something to do with the species, maybe humanity has more attention of the chaos gods than other species. Either way: that is a problem the Tau do not have to face. If they had it would be interesting how much more humane their solution would be (that is not meant sarcastic, I would honestly be interested if they could find a better way).

@ this quote:

As for other forces once again per capita the Tau have gone through more bs on there short time the galactic stage than any similar sized grouping of imperial worlds bar maybe the worlds around Cadia. I mean in just a thousand years theyve had to fight several wars woth the Imperium including a small Crusade. An entire Hive Fleet. At least two necron tomb worlds that I know of, multiple ork Waaghh etc etc etc. And the tau only have like a 100 planets including all the really small colonies and listening posts. You name any grouping of 100 Imperial planets other then Cadia that has had to deal with that much BS in such a short period of time.

I lack background knowledge to have a good answer for that. My guess would be anything around the Eye of Terror should have seen more or less constant action for the last 10.000 years. And the systems and clusters in the vicinity of the various ork empires should also have had a lot of "fun". But I can not estimate if that is more, the same or less than what the Tau went through.


@ the Kryptman thing: I think one important point here is scale... I did not read the book were he did that but lets estimate that back then he exterminated something between 10 and 100 planets (and most probably non of which have been amongst the most populous ones). Looking from the Tau perspective that is enormous. That would be between 10 and 100% of their empire. Putting that in our perspective that would mean sacrificing something between 700 Million and 7 billion human lifes in 20th century earth to slow down an enemy which is horrible.
But now let us look at it from the imperial perspective having 1 Million planets to care for. Than it is between 0.001 and 0.01 % of their planets (and likely less of their population). Applied on our earth we are talking about 70.000 - 700,000 people. Don't take me wrong, it is still unbelievably cruel, but If an army of Killerbugs were about to eat ehmmm... Malta (~500.000) and turn each maltesian into a Killerbug before marching on straight into the heart of Europe within a couple of days (replace example with regions of your liking) and there was no way to evacuate the maltesiand in time... But nukeing Malta would not only stop those 500.000 from becoming Killer bugs but also buy Europe a year of preparation time... I may have a fatalistic view of mankind but I guess there would be various people arguing to do it.


On a similar note: I often read the argument going from the direction of "Yes, but there are also imperial pleasure and Agri worlds, life is good in a lot of parts of the imperium and only sucks on Forgeworlds/Hiveworlds/Fortress Worlds": You can also turn that around. If you live on a Hive or Forgeworld or your planet has another reason to be of highest importance for the imperium they are willing and able to hold on to it with a stupid amount of manpower and force. The imperium will and has already thrown Billions of soldiers on these type of worlds to defend them against Chaos, Orks etc.

The Imperium does not sugar coat their intentions like the Tau do.

Morally superior? I get that. The Tau produce 62.3 trillion Good moral units, where as the IoM produces a mere 17.1 Good Moral Units (GMUs). Conversely, the IoM produces 1111,111 Bad Moral Units. Obviously the tau, pound for moral pound, are better. This is because of the irrefutable moral Sciences. As undeniable as physics and chemistry.

Or morality is just a facet of propaganda. Choose your poison.

Morality is personal, not propaganda.

But 'genocide is bad,' as a general rule, is not propaganda either.

Unless genocide is part of a scorched earth tactic of pure survival to stop a predatory alien species that wants to melt you and your mum for a delicious biomass dinner.. I'm all about genocide ait that point, morality be damned.

Based on my personal acceptable living standards, I'd rather live under tau rule than Imperial rule.

I mean, I'd rather BE an Eldar of all 40k species, as their biology and lifestyle is objectively better. Slannesh is a optional ending not a mandatory one.

I find the 'tau are shielded by the existence of the imperium so it's not real' argument to be facetious.

The imperium loves to talk about using its enemies against each other. Diverting Tyranids into Ork space, the existence of Orks everywhere in general. If the imperium can, it will. The imperium only exists now because of the protective shadow the Eldar empire cast over the galaxy 12,000+ years ago.

The tau are no different. And the imperium is shielded by the tau being in the way of nids in that direction.

Put it this way, any time an army fights anyone not YOU, they are helping you. Because either of them could be fighting you instead.

I think mostly it boils down to a variety of out of character reasons. Primarily, we're told the Imperium is for humans and is thus relatable*, and secondarily, the Tau were introduced later and there's NOTHING nerds like more than to complain about what they think is new**.

*They're not - or, written well, I think the Imperium and it's way of thinking SHOULD be deeply alient to most of us readers.

**I mean, really, Space Marines as warrior monks? That's SO johnny-come-lately 40k. I'm a REAL nerd, and I know that Space Marines are actually brain-wiped convicts with Toughness 3.

chimera0205 wrote:
I've never understood how people can seriously argue this point. Like I know Mind Control and Sterilization but like have you never met the Inquisition or the Ecclearchy? Yeah sure the Tau control almost every aspect of your life but at least in the Tau your life has value. Your not gonna see any Tau Fire warriors just shoot you for gaks and giggles and your definitely never gonna see any Tau Fleet blow up a bunch of LOYAL Tau planets for the sole sin of having the audacity to be in the general direction a Tyranid Hive Fleet was heading in. (fething Kryptman.) Both empires are incredibly totalitarian and you have litterally no rights or freedoms on either an yeah sure you might have a TINY itty bitty bit more freedom on SOME imperial worlds but is that tiny amount of maybe extra freedom IF ypur lucky enough to be born on the right planet out weight the massive cost in value to your government and massive increase in disposability? I don't think it is. And please for Terras sake don't just reply by screaming Heresy. Im trying to have a actual conversation here.

The Imperium of Man has learned it needs to be absolutely ruthless over thousands of years of utter carnage and enemies on all fronts.

The Tau just haven't learned that lesson yet.

Also, in the 40K universe, the God-Emperor is an actual thing (i.e. he's very real). This means loyalty and service to the Emperor has its own moral facets.

Also, the Tau have a caste system which is not exactly egalitarian.

This subject is not as easy as it looks superficially.