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.
Now that I have lured you in with that clickbait title, it's actually true. As revealed in the latest T'au book Shadowsun by Phil Kelly:
Spoiler:
The warp entity encountered by the 4th Sphere Expansion fleet is real and multi-armed like a Hindu god statue or Buddha statue, with arms that are a mixture of T'au arms and those of the subject races including humans, but with a blank featureless T'au head. Identifying itself as literally T'au'va, it had already previously saved Shadowsun when she was a student, from drowning in a cave flood. Its role becomes pivotal in the story which revolves around the Death Guard attack on the Nem'yar Atoll wormhole. Statues and shrines raised by the T'au client races are unaffected by the Death Guard's supernatural algal growth while everything else gets covered in a layer of blinding slimy growth. Shadowsun herself is saved from daemon flies by the prayers of her Nicassar and Charpactin companions. Though the deity is featureless with no mouth, it communicates telepathically and uses female pronouns.
Though initially disgusted by the idea of a literal deity of the Greater Good, Shadowsun, like Guilliman, seems to conclude there is a role for faith as it seems effective against Chaos, and rescinds her order to destroy the T'au'va shrines. The Death Guard flagship and its escorts enter the wormhole as detailed in Psychic Awakening but never exit to attack the sept worlds of the main T'au Empire. A T'au messenger drone passed through but could find no trace. Now it is revealed why (the T'au themselves don't know though, as we see the reveal from the Death Guard POV):
T'au'va holds the ships, becalmed, in the warp. The Death Guard champion sees a hand with fingers the size of strike cruisers holding his ship "like a fly in aspic" and he goes mad over being becalmed again as he never got over the trauma of being becalmed with Mortarion during the Heresy. Why T'au'va didn't just crush the ships? Maybe becalming them is a form of divine karmic retribution on the Death Guard
Now it seems Shadowsun may have her own secret to hide or point of disagreement with the Ethereals.
This message was edited 6 times. Last update was at 2022/11/19 12:08:01
If the T'au and their allied/subject races are under the protection of the T'au'va then it would seem that humanity living as gue'vesa under the T'au could be a viable alternative to the Imperium as a path for humanity's survival and prosperity. Maybe the protection of T'au'va is why the T'au have not had a full blown daemonic incursion despite now centuries of having psychically active races under their rule. Thus far T'au'va seems to have acted purely benevolently: giving the drowning Shadowsun air, opening a way out of the warp for the 4th Sphere fleet, trapping the Death Guard fleet.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/11/19 13:29:56
Surely being able to becalm ships in the warp en masse, presumably against the wishes of the Chaos Gods, indicates a level of power that other entities such as the Emperor don't have?
Surprised that such an ending was chosen, given it halts the possibility of a follow up campaign of the DG invading Tau space.
It’s so lazy and crap that everything is boiling down to “warp entity”. The imagination that made 40k great is sadly missing, it started with the HH novels and has gotten worse since.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Well, never rule out that it’s Tzeentch masquerading. Traditional foe of Nurgle, and with their rapid advancement? Tau are good at Change.
Haven’t read the novel so please don’t put weight on this claim. But it’s an interesting thought, no?
I really hope it's just Tzeentch as this lore just sounds odd to me. Tau allies now worship the concept of the Greater Good as a God? So they pray to the idea of working together and/or for the Tau? And that somehow made a Warp God just for themselves, as if the Warp works in a way where the emotions and feelings from them are somehow different from those very same emotions and feelings from others?
Maybe I've just had the wrong interpretation of the Warp the whole time, but I was under the impression that it's emotions and feelings that matter when it comes to the Warp. It's only recently that I've seen it mentioned that "belief" itself, as in what they actually think, somehow makes a difference. Since when has the Warp been about "beliefs" and not "the emotions attached to beliefs"? Combined with the idea of a species getting their own personal Warp God (that hasn't been manufactured as part of their species creation like the Eldar and Ork Gods are implied to be) it just doesn't make sense to me.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2022/11/19 17:20:30
Andykp wrote: It’s so lazy and crap that everything is boiling down to “warp entity”. The imagination that made 40k great is sadly missing, it started with the HH novels and has gotten worse since.
They really should have that quote by Tuomas Pirinen about "closed doors" in fiction and what they are stapled to every bloody wall in their offices...
...we used a method called the "closed door". We added mysterious, hinted-at aspects to the fiction, maybe just mentioned in the passing, to create mystery and questions in the minds of the fans -without any immediate plans on deciding what the fiction piece actually is. It could be a lost Space Marine Legion, Primarch, mythical hero, lost continent or planet or anything else. Now, then we'd return to it years later and flesh it out properly, and fans would think in amazement that we planned it like that from the beginning -which was not true...
These kind of things were often what we called "Closed Doors" evocative, thought-provoking and mysterious tidbits added to the fiction which we left vague on purpose. This then allowed us to return to it years later, flesh them out, and make fans think we thought them through the first time we mentioned them.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2022/11/19 18:56:51
Games Workshop Delenda Est.
Users on ignore- 53.
If you break apart my or anyone else's posts line by line I will not read them.
Mentlegen324 wrote: I really hope it's just Tzeentch as this lore just sounds odd to me. Tau allies now worship the concept of the Greater Good as a God? So they pray to the idea of working together and/or for the Tau? And that somehow made a Warp God just for themselves, as if the Warp works in a way where the emotions and feelings from them are somehow different from those very same emotions and feelings from others?
If you think of it as a nontheistic religion it sort of works. The allied races don't worship a God but the Greater Good is as a religion to them with the entity being the manifestation of that religion. So they aren't worshipping an individual like with the Emperor or one of the Dark Gods but rather they believe in the Tau'va which in turn creates the being in the Warp as a sort of avatar.
Maybe I've just had the wrong interpretation of the Warp the whole time, but I was under the impression that it's emotions and feelings that matter when it comes to the Warp. It's only recently that I've seen it mentioned that "belief" itself, as in what they actually think, somehow makes a difference. Since when has the Warp been about "beliefs" and not "the emotions attached to beliefs"? Combined with the idea of a species getting their own personal Warp God (that hasn't been manufactured as part of their species creation like the Eldar and Ork Gods are implied to be) it just doesn't make sense to me.
Is togetherness and safety within the Tau'va not a feeling? How about clarity of purpose and a sense of fulfillment?
Also, belief is definitely a factor in play. Being rageful is one thing but being rageful and dedicating that rage to the Lord of Rage is something else. It's the same with actions, where murder is all well and good but murdering someone in the name of Khorne is so much better. If you don't believe in Khorne then that rage is just generally chucked about but a belief makes it targeted.
Not saying you are wrong, just offering an opinion.
T'au'va holds the ships, becalmed, in the warp. The Death Guard champion sees a hand with fingers the size of strike cruisers holding his ship "like a fly in aspic" and he goes mad over being becalmed again as he never got over the trauma of being becalmed with Mortarion during the Heresy. Why T'au'va didn't just crush the ships? Maybe becalming them is a form of divine karmic retribution on the Death Guard
Once again Daddy Issues is the real bad guy of Warhammer 40k.
SideSwipe wrote: Surely being able to becalm ships in the warp en masse, presumably against the wishes of the Chaos Gods, indicates a level of power that other entities such as the Emperor don't have?
Surprised that such an ending was chosen, given it halts the possibility of a follow up campaign of the DG invading Tau space.
T'au'va seems to only act in a few specific instances. Whereas the Emperor's miracles are sprinkled throughout the galaxy wherever the SoB and faithful are, thus far we see only handful of T'au'va miracles, and they seem to be less flashy than what the Emperor is doing these days. There is no golden light and no enemy bursting into flame. Two instances seem to be passive, with Nurgle icky stuff and daemon flies not touching or recoiling from either T'au'va statues or the prayers of the allied races. One, Shadowsun getting air while nearly drowning in a cave as a student, is dismissed initially as a near death hallucination/ghost by Shadowsun. The becalming was seemingly as a result of Shadowsun telling all allied races in the Atoll to pray at a specific point in time, for the Death Guard to somehow be stopped or destroy themselves, and this time was when the Death Guard entered the wormhole.
The Chaos gods also don't stop every supernatural effect directed against them. Khorne may dislike psychic powers and grant some resistance, but it is not absolute 100% protection, and if a follower or daemon still succumbs to psychic powers, then Khorne doesn't care as clearly the follower was too weak and deserved its fate.
They really should have that quote by Tuomas Pirinen about "closed doors" in fiction and what they are stapled to every bloody wall in their offices...
Actually there is an afterword by Phil Kelly who said that it was precisely such a closed door or dangling thread from the previous mystery of the Death Guard fleet vanishing in the wormhole in Psychic Awakening that he chose as the focus for the story in Shadowsun.
Mind you, it doesn't absolutely close off the possibility of the Death Guard eventually escaping, if somebody at GW/Black Library really want to follow up on this.
Combined with the idea of a species getting their own personal Warp God (that hasn't been manufactured as part of their species creation like the Eldar and Ork Gods are implied to be) it just doesn't make sense to me.
It's always been racial gods. The Eldar have their pantheon. The Orks have theirs. Humans have Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch as detailed in the original Realms of Chaos books, and have later adopted the Eldar god Slaanesh in a form of pantheon migration. Though gods can have worshippers of different races, they seem to still have an origin and dominant feeding ground. T'au'va is also very specifically not a T'au god, as the T'au don't engage in religious practices and/or their souls are too weak for it to make much difference anyway.
The subject races though seem to find it easier to worship an entity rather than just an abstract impersonal philosophy. They raise statues and the Charpactin specifically call on "Great T'au'va". Shadowsun argues with one of them saying the Greater Good is a philosophy not a god. The Charpactin replies "If you like. I feel sure she would take no offence at the misnomer".
Finally it seems that Puretide himself might have been a bit of a heretic himself as he made some statements about the usefulness of faith being a guide when all else fails.
This message was edited 7 times. Last update was at 2022/11/19 21:17:18
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: I remember when the Tau came out and the very negative reaction to their aesthetic as well as the Greater Good.
Um, no, the future is grim and dark and there is only war.
Having seen this, I stand by that sentiment.
When the 4th Sphere was rescued by this entity they went genocidal on their non-T'au allies. They would massacre populated worlds and put their non-T'au troops in deliberately suicidal or impossible scenarios to wipe them out. It got so bad the entire Sphere was recalled for re-education and the incidents were suppressed by the Ethereal council.
The only people who think the T'au don't fit the setting are people who don't actually understand the setting. The T'au are plenty bad they just aren't as bad as the Imperium, yet.
When the 4th Sphere was rescued by this entity they went genocidal on their non-T'au allies. They would massacre populated worlds and put their non-T'au troops in deliberately suicidal or impossible scenarios to wipe them out. It got so bad the entire Sphere was recalled for re-education and the incidents were suppressed by the Ethereal council.
The only people who think the T'au don't fit the setting are people who don't actually understand the setting. The T'au are plenty bad they just aren't as bad as the Imperium, yet.
If I read this correctly, the Tau ethicists think genocide is wrong.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: I remember when the Tau came out and the very negative reaction to their aesthetic as well as the Greater Good.
Um, no, the future is grim and dark and there is only war.
Having seen this, I stand by that sentiment.
When the 4th Sphere was rescued by this entity they went genocidal on their non-T'au allies. They would massacre populated worlds and put their non-T'au troops in deliberately suicidal or impossible scenarios to wipe them out. It got so bad the entire Sphere was recalled for re-education and the incidents were suppressed by the Ethereal council.
The only people who think the T'au don't fit the setting are people who don't actually understand the setting. The T'au are plenty bad they just aren't as bad as the Imperium, yet.
One of the leftover threads is Shadowsun tried to investigate what happened as one of the 4th Sphere Kroot actually lunged at the 4th Sphere commander and accused him of killing off the allies on purpose. This was going behind the Ethreal's back, but her investigation was shelved by the Death Guard invasion.
The unresolved question is what happens in the future at least in the Atoll and its surrounding regions. The allies and newly conquered are now permitted by Shadowsun to keep their shrines. The traditionalist T'au would no doubt at the very least want them demolished, with the most extreme wanting the allies gone entirely. Shadowsun now secretly knows the Ethereals were hiding the existence of the warp and daemons in the warp, and she now acknowledges there seems to be something about faith and prayer that repels these daemons as she would have died if not for the prayers of her allies driving off a cloud of daemon flies clogging up and tearing apart her armor. Her acceptance may be purely pragmatic but it may also be in part due to now accepting her experience in the cave flood with a vision and short conversation with T'au'va. She had asked T'au'va how to repay for saving her life, and the reply had been "I simply wish to exist"
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/11/19 21:31:08
They think it's wrong unless it benefits them, which BTW is actually what the Imperium does in practice. For example, one of the major T'au Sept homeworlds once belonged to another Xenos race that somehow mysteriously died off when they made contact with the T'au who then annexed the planet and made it a new Sept. An entire Sphere going ape and committing mass murder of their allies doesn't benefit the wider T'au regime.
But of course, if you ignore the unimpeachable ruling elite class, the strictly enforced caste system, re-education camps, and indoctrination centres then sure the T'au don't fit. Just like the Craftworlds don't fit, or the Leagues of Votann, or the Salamanders.
So once again, my point stands that the people who don't actually know T'au lore are the ones who think they don't belong.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2022/11/19 21:58:12
Mentlegen324 wrote: I really hope it's just Tzeentch as this lore just sounds odd to me. Tau allies now worship the concept of the Greater Good as a God? So they pray to the idea of working together and/or for the Tau? And that somehow made a Warp God just for themselves, as if the Warp works in a way where the emotions and feelings from them are somehow different from those very same emotions and feelings from others?
If you think of it as a nontheistic religion it sort of works. The allied races don't worship a God but the Greater Good is as a religion to them with the entity being the manifestation of that religion. So they aren't worshipping an individual like with the Emperor or one of the Dark Gods but rather they believe in the Tau'va which in turn creates the being in the Warp as a sort of avatar.
Maybe I've just had the wrong interpretation of the Warp the whole time, but I was under the impression that it's emotions and feelings that matter when it comes to the Warp. It's only recently that I've seen it mentioned that "belief" itself, as in what they actually think, somehow makes a difference. Since when has the Warp been about "beliefs" and not "the emotions attached to beliefs"? Combined with the idea of a species getting their own personal Warp God (that hasn't been manufactured as part of their species creation like the Eldar and Ork Gods are implied to be) it just doesn't make sense to me.
Is togetherness and safety within the Tau'va not a feeling? How about clarity of purpose and a sense of fulfillment?
Also, belief is definitely a factor in play.
What I'm getting at is that "belief" in a certain entity doesn't change the emotions and feelings attached to it. They're the exact same emotions other species with their own beliefs would have, so they'd go to the same place. What is your source for emotions being able to be directed at specific Warp entity and those then getting them specifically? I have never seen anything saying that in the close to 20 years I've been into 40k, although I've obviously not read everything.The idea of a species just being able to "choose" for it go to some other entity is just baffling, you don't have to "believe" in Khorne or Slaanesh or any of the others for the associated emotions to feed them, they just get them regardless.
The Warp doesn't work in a way where the different emotions for different species go to a different place because of their beliefs, it's the same Chaos Gods because they just are those emotions made manifest in the warp.
SideSwipe wrote: Surely being able to becalm ships in the warp en masse, presumably against the wishes of the Chaos Gods, indicates a level of power that other entities such as the Emperor don't have?
Surprised that such an ending was chosen, given it halts the possibility of a follow up campaign of the DG invading Tau space.
T'au'va seems to only act in a few specific instances. Whereas the Emperor's miracles are sprinkled throughout the galaxy wherever the SoB and faithful are, thus far we see only handful of T'au'va miracles, and they seem to be less flashy than what the Emperor is doing these days. There is no golden light and no enemy bursting into flame. Two instances seem to be passive, with Nurgle icky stuff and daemon flies not touching or recoiling from either T'au'va statues or the prayers of the allied races. One, Shadowsun getting air while nearly drowning in a cave as a student, is dismissed initially as a near death hallucination/ghost by Shadowsun. The becalming was seemingly as a result of Shadowsun telling all allied races in the Atoll to pray at a specific point in time, for the Death Guard to somehow be stopped or destroy themselves, and this time was when the Death Guard entered the wormhole.
The Chaos gods also don't stop every supernatural effect directed against them. Khorne may dislike psychic powers and grant some resistance, but it is not absolute 100% protection, and if a follower or daemon still succumbs to psychic powers, then Khorne doesn't care as clearly the follower was too weak and deserved its fate.
They really should have that quote by Tuomas Pirinen about "closed doors" in fiction and what they are stapled to every bloody wall in their offices...
Actually there is an afterword by Phil Kelly who said that it was precisely such a closed door or dangling thread from the previous mystery of the Death Guard fleet vanishing in the wormhole in Psychic Awakening that he chose as the focus for the story in Shadowsun.
Mind you, it doesn't absolutely close off the possibility of the Death Guard eventually escaping, if somebody at GW/Black Library really want to follow up on this.
Combined with the idea of a species getting their own personal Warp God (that hasn't been manufactured as part of their species creation like the Eldar and Ork Gods are implied to be) it just doesn't make sense to me.
It's always been racial gods. The Eldar have their pantheon. The Orks have theirs. Humans have Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch as detailed in the original Realms of Chaos books, and have later adopted the Eldar god Slaanesh in a form of pantheon migration. Though gods can have worshippers of different races, they seem to still have an origin and dominant feeding ground. T'au'va is also very specifically not a T'au god, as the T'au don't engage in religious practices and/or their souls are too weak for it to make much difference anyway.
I already mentioned those in the sentence you've quoted. The Orks and Eldar are manufactured races and we can't really assume specifics of their associated Warp entities apply to the rest because of that.
The Chaos Gods aren't Humanity's specific chaos Gods, Humanity might be one of the species that feed them the most but that doesn't mean they're something "for" humanity, they're the Gods of those emotions and feelings for the galaxy at large. Slaanesh wasn't an Eldar God despite being created by the actions of the Eldar.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2022/11/19 22:10:28
The Chaos Gods aren't Humanity's specific chaos Gods, Humanity might be one of the species that feed them the most but that doesn't mean they're something "for" humanity, they're the Gods of those emotions and feelings for the galaxy at large. Slaanesh wasn't an Eldar God despite being created by the actions of the Eldar.
The Chaos gods are humanity's gods. They specifically arose from humanity as humanity became more numerous, more advanced, and crowded together enough for plagues. This is again directly from the original Realms of Chaos and they awoke in the order of Khorne, Tzeentch, and Nurgle, despite the Emperor's attempts to stop them. They would have been smaller weaker then but grew with humanity's spread across the galaxy. Slaanesh was an Eldar god because it was formed from Eldar souls and still retains a fondness for them. It exploded onto the scene as opposed to the more gradual buildup of the other gods. Clearly however it was not a sustainable diet though and it has since switched over to feeding from humanity. Think of how Isis, an Egyptian goddess gained Roman worshippers.
It only "doesn't make sense" to you because you haven't looked at the original Realms of Chaos. It's always been about racial gods. Yes, they can then branch out and gain worshippers from others such as how there are examples of both Khorne and Nurgle worshipping Orks, or how the humans on Angelis seemed to want to be Orks (maybe feeding Gork and Mork), but that does not change the origin of the god itself. The idea then of a racial god of the T'au (ok, strictly speaking of their allied races) then isn't that unusual in a galaxy of other racial pantheons.
The warp seethes with all sorts of gods and entities. In the Realms of Chaos books, Daemon Princes could be worshipped as demigods. There was a Gifts of Mortarion table for example.
This message was edited 9 times. Last update was at 2022/11/19 23:05:44
Mentlegen324 wrote: What I'm getting at is that "belief" in a certain entity doesn't change the emotions and feelings attached to it. They're the exact same emotions other species with their own beliefs would have, so they'd go to the same place. What is your source for emotions being able to be directed at specific Warp entity and those then getting them specifically? I have never seen anything saying that in the close to 20 years I've been into 40k, although I've obviously not read everything.The idea of a species just being able to "choose" for it go to some other entity is just baffling, you don't have to "believe" in Khorne or Slaanesh or any of the others for the associated emotions to feed them, they just get them regardless.
The Warp doesn't work in a way where the different emotions for different species go to a different place because of their beliefs, it's the same Chaos Gods because they just are those emotions made manifest in the warp.
Rage fuels Khorne in the same way that a dripping tap will fill a bucket. It still happens but it's not effective. Dedication to and belief in Khorne with an individual's rage is more potent and is akin to having a running tap to fill the bucket. If the former was the only thing the Gods needed to gain power then they wouldn't seek followers and worshippers, would they?
Belief in a deity offers that deity more power.
The Tau'va has believers in the Warp-sensitive allied species as a semi-religious doctrine, and this belief combined with the emotions that they felt as part of the Tau'va resulted in the created of an entity. What those emotions are I don't know but we have precedence in the entire Chaos Pantheon for races spawning deity-like beings on the back of intense emotion. The Chaos Gods weren't always as powerful as they currently are and it took thousands of years for them to come close to awakening, something that only happened thanks to humanity. The War in Heaven not only caused the souring of the Warp but was the greatest conflict ever seen in the galaxy, yet it didn't cause the awakening of any Gods. Humanity was the trigger. Did they in turn influence other races, yes. But there were hundreds of human cultures that worshipped the Pantheon in the years prior to the collapse of humanity's interstellar empires.
I also never said that if a T'au allied Warp-sensitive species felt rage that it didn't go to Khorne. There are more emotions than rage, despair, excess and ambition.
The Chaos Gods aren't Humanity's specific chaos Gods, Humanity might be one of the species that feed them the most but that doesn't mean they're something "for" humanity, they're the Gods of those emotions and feelings for the galaxy at large. Slaanesh wasn't an Eldar God despite being created by the actions of the Eldar.
The Chaos gods are humanity's gods. They specifically arose from humanity as humanity became more numerous, more advanced, and crowded together enough for plagues. This is again directly from the original Realms of Chaos and they awoke in the order of Khorne, Tzeentch, and Nurgle, despite the Emperor's attempts to stop them. They would have been smaller weaker then but grew with humanity's spread across the galaxy. Slaanesh was an Eldar god because it was formed from Eldar souls and still retains a fondness for them. It exploded onto the scene as opposed to the more gradual buildup of the other gods. Clearly however it was not a sustainable diet though and it has since switched over to feeding from humanity. Think of how Isis, an Egyptian goddess gained Roman worshippers.
It only "doesn't make sense" to you because you haven't looked at the original Realms of Chaos. It's always been about racial gods. Yes, they can then branch out and gain worshippers from others such as how there are examples of both Khorne and Nurgle worshipping Orks, or how the humans on Angelis seemed to want to be Orks (maybe feeding Gork and Mork), but that does not change the origin of the god itself. The idea then of a racial god of the T'au (ok, strictly speaking of their allied races) then isn't that unusual in a galaxy of other racial pantheons.
The warp seethes with all sorts of gods and entities. In the Realms of Chaos books, Daemon Princes could be worshipped as demigods. There was a Gifts of Mortarion table for example.
Weren't Nurgle, Tzeentch, and Khorne born during the War in Heaven, and Slaanesh was born from Eldar? Certainly racial gods exist. The Emperor is the god for Humanity. But the Chaos Gods seem mostly distinct from specific races. Unless a single planet fighting and not believing in Khorne spawned him.
‘What Lorgar’s fanatics have not seen is that these gods are nothing compared to the power and the majesty of the Machine-God. Already, members of our growing cult are using the grace of the Omnissiah – the true Omnissiah, not Terra’s false prophet – to harness the might of the warp. Geller fields, warp missiles, void shields, all these things you are familiar with. But their underlying principles can be turned to so much more. Through novel exploitations of these technologies we will gain mastery first over the energies of the empyrean, then over the lesser entities, until finally the very gods themselves will bend the knee and recognise the supremacy of the Machine-God"
- Heretek Ardim Protos in Titandeath by Guy Haley
Weren't Nurgle, Tzeentch, and Khorne born during the War in Heaven, and Slaanesh was born from Eldar? Certainly racial gods exist. The Emperor is the god for Humanity. But the Chaos Gods seem mostly distinct from specific races. Unless a single planet fighting and not believing in Khorne spawned him.
The warp became turbulent during the War in Heaven. That's different from saying Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle (henceforth abbreviated to KTN) arose then.
The Realms of Chaos specifically says the Emperor came about because the warp was becoming unsafe for the ancient shamans to reincarnate so they all pooled themselves into one vessel, the Emperor. Then the Emperor worked hard but unsuccessfully against the awakening of Khorne, Tzeentch, and Nurgle.
However even then they would have been the Chaos gods of an isolated backwater race confined to one planet. They would have grown in power with humanity's growth and spread across the stars. Gods are a reflection of those they gain power from. The Ork gods are pretty much invulnerable because Orks as a race are nigh impossible to wipe out on a galactic scale. The traditional Eldar gods grew weak because the Eldar largely abandoned their traditional values in favor of decadence as an end in itself.
The Eldar and Orks created much more focused racial gods maybe because they were guided by the Old Ones, or because they were so unified culturally in their beliefs. Fractious disorganized humanity created a bunch of gods inadvertently. Frankly I think in the end, after the Heresy, the Emperor abandoned trying to fight the trend and decided that if humanity is going to create gods anyway, it should be him.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2022/11/19 23:26:35
Every time a new piece of fluff arrives, people complain about how it is stupid and GW doesn't write well anymore like they did in the good ole days. Every. Single. Time. Mmmmmaybe some of us need to start expressing personal subjective opinions as such?
Anyways, much speculation to be had. Is it ACTUALLY a warp manifestation of The Greater Good and nothing else, or is it an aspect that has been rolled into another God? Tzeentch being prime suspect here, but it could easily be some Vashtorr, Be'Lakor, or some subordinate daemon. At any rate I am glad GW has ditched the 20-year philosophy of 'big 4 and nothing else' and is treating the Warp with more of the diversity it would actually have. Wouldn't go so far as referencing Realms of Chaos though, a lot of that, even fundamental pieces, has been well and thoroughly ret-conned.
As for being female, that's a given; she has the greater goods
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/11/20 00:51:06
So once again, my point stands that the people who don't actually know T'au lore are the ones who think they don't belong.
I don't need to know them, I can just look at them. They don't fit.
I mean, okay, GW decided to expand its marketing, they've been around for a while, people are now used to them, but that doesn't change the fact that they're the odd ducks of the 40k universe.
To be honest, I did not even associate this thread with the Tau. I probably could not successfully pick out Tau vs all the other mecha-looking stuff floating around. What was the 90s era game where the power suits had roller skates? The Tau always reminded me of that.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/11/20 01:06:04
I probably could not successfully pick out Tau vs all the other mecha-looking stuff floating around.
If you cannot differentiate a Riptide from a Gundam then you probably cannot differentiate a Leman Russ from a Mark 1 tank or a Tyranid Warrior from a Xenomorph.
The whole point of 40k is that it is this giant sandbox in which GW took concepts from both their fantasy game and from other people and smashed it all together.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/11/20 03:30:19
Andykp wrote: It’s so lazy and crap that everything is boiling down to “warp entity”. The imagination that made 40k great is sadly missing, it started with the HH novels and has gotten worse since.
They really should have that quote by Tuomas Pirinen about "closed doors" in fiction and what they are stapled to every bloody wall in their offices...
...we used a method called the "closed door". We added mysterious, hinted-at aspects to the fiction, maybe just mentioned in the passing, to create mystery and questions in the minds of the fans -without any immediate plans on deciding what the fiction piece actually is. It could be a lost Space Marine Legion, Primarch, mythical hero, lost continent or planet or anything else. Now, then we'd return to it years later and flesh it out properly, and fans would think in amazement that we planned it like that from the beginning -which was not true...
These kind of things were often what we called "Closed Doors" evocative, thought-provoking and mysterious tidbits added to the fiction which we left vague on purpose. This then allowed us to return to it years later, flesh them out, and make fans think we thought them through the first time we mentioned them.
This was the joy of 40k, so many unknowns that the universe it’s set in seemed mysterious and lots of scope for your own fluff.
Now they dum it all down. It’s like a marvel-ification of the setting, every faction getting a “warp entity” and the galaxy becomes a Ancient Greek style play mat for the gods.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
NinthMusketeer wrote: Every time a new piece of fluff arrives, people complain about how it is stupid and GW doesn't write well anymore like they did in the good ole days. Every. Single. Time. Mmmmmaybe some of us need to start expressing personal subjective opinions as such?
Anyways, much speculation to be had. Is it ACTUALLY a warp manifestation of The Greater Good and nothing else, or is it an aspect that has been rolled into another God? Tzeentch being prime suspect here, but it could easily be some Vashtorr, Be'Lakor, or some subordinate daemon. At any rate I am glad GW has ditched the 20-year philosophy of 'big 4 and nothing else' and is treating the Warp with more of the diversity it would actually have. Wouldn't go so far as referencing Realms of Chaos though, a lot of that, even fundamental pieces, has been well and thoroughly ret-conned.
As for being female, that's a given; she has the greater goods
We’re discussing whether or not we like a bit of back ground, it’s kind of a given that it’s subjective, I shouldn’t have to state that my thinking it’s bad and lazy writing is my opinion on it and via versa for those who like it.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/11/20 09:27:25
It was bad and lazy writing 10, 20, 30 years ago too. Everything they write is declared as 'I do not personally like this, so it is bad and lazy writing'. There's a big difference between 'this is bad writing' and 'this writing is not enjoyable to me'.
NinthMusketeer wrote: It was bad and lazy writing 10, 20, 30 years ago too. Everything they write is declared as 'I do not personally like this, so it is bad and lazy writing'. There's a big difference between 'this is bad writing' and 'this writing is not enjoyable to me'.
Ok, to clarify, when I state my opinion on anything on here it is only that, my opinion. I do not state it as objective fact but my subjective take on it. For example when I say that is lazy or crap, that is my opinion. I am not saying anyone else is wrong to like it.
Better? Apologies if it came across as me saying anything else, never my intention.
NinthMusketeer wrote: One can also feel that they work thematically but not aesthetically. (Camp I am in.)
Yep, that's where I'm at.
Everything in 40k has the same "fantasy gone wrong/1930s Great War" feel to it but the Tau. GW clearly wanted to reach out the mecha/high tech fans and I guess it worked (no idea what sales are for them vs anything else) but it just doesn't work. As far as it goes, the Greater Good can be female, I mean the Eldar have a female protectress.
The "closed door" is GW at it's best. Very little actually nailed down, gaps purposefully left in the lore ("records destroyed") and conflicting accounts. It makes it feel real because real history works like that. Interesting that even Tolkien left gaps and ambiguities.
It is a mark of decline that franchises start to do "reveals" on these doors rather than create anything legitimately interesting. Of course, what inevitably happens is that the "reveals" are disappointing because the vast majority of the time what people imagined to fill the gap is much better than what anyone could come up with. (Top Gun: Maverick is the exception to this rule.)
The tau were originally a reach out to the Japanese market at the time. They have always felt not quite right for 40k to me. Bits are interesting but this “god” ruins those few decent snippets.
