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 Tawnis wrote:


Also, someone mentioned a story I've never ready about her refusing the call to return home and make a bunch of kids to carry on her family line. If that's the case, it would lead us to infer a more natural system of birth for the Tau.

Incidentally it does make more sense to have kids first, hand them to indoctrination centre, head off to fight. Certainly that was the old Squat background, two kids first then combat.

I wouldn't take either edition of Xenology as as Canonical Truth; they're both situated in-universe as being largely speculative from Imperial humans. While the ostensible writers are more exposed to the wider galaxy than the overwhelming majority of 40k humans, they're still extremely limited in their own understanding.

That being said, from a metanarrative perspective I don't think there's any problem with the Tau Empire just being very small and thus having the benefits of both being relatively ignored by bigger powers and having shorter supply routes. If 40k is expansive then there should be some galactically-small but locally important powers, and the Tau could serve as an example of one. Of course if we're fans of them we might want them to do well, but the rise of small backwater species to galactic prominence is also part of the setting. Humans were a nothing until they were a something and then they've spent 10k years slowly falling apart, Eldar were a little more something because of Old One Shenanigans but their dominance is a hint of a whisper of a memory now. The Tau are just (potentially) at the beginning of that cycle - maybe even the end of the beginning and they might either go through it, or never make it, or MAYBE they'll somehow manage something else, but all of those are up for the audience to debate.

Presumably, when the Old Ones were around, there were a lot more Krork than there were Old Ones - empires have never let anything as inconsequential as numbers determine who sets policy, but they also may collapse for any number of reasons, demographic or otherwise.

I've always liked that take on the setting, the rise and fall of galactic empires.

- The Old Ones rose first, though who knows if there were races before them, if there were, they are now lost to history. While they were in prominence, the Necrontyr rose are began to challange them.
- The Old Ones power waned as the Nectontyr became the Necrons, and the Aeldari were created as the youngest to help oppose them.
- With the passing of the Old Ones the Necrons were (briefly) the oldest, but then went to sleep while the Aeldari claimed the galaxy as their dominion for melenia until eventually humanty began to walk the stars.
- With the birth of Slaneesh, the Aeldari fell and after the Age of Strife, Humanity emerged as the dominant force during the great crusade, and has been slowly loosing it's grip on that for the past 10 millennia while the Tau have arose in their little corner of space.

While I don't think that GW would ever do this for MANY reasons, I personally think that, conceptually, a series set in 50k would be fascinating. The Aeldari are all but extinct, humanity has fallen from it's heights and fractured into many smaller states, the Tau are leading a great war of unification, and some new powerful race with some new ideals and agendas is rising in opposition somewhere else in the galaxy.

There’s also a cycle of hubris.

The Old Ones, allegedly, refused to aid the Necrontyr in extending their lives. The war started, and The Old Ones lost, and in their hubris created entire species just to fight it, which apparently began the destabilisation of the warp.

The Necrontyr made their deal, became the Necron, won their war and paid their price.

With the Necron defeated, the Eldar became the pre-eminent race, until they birthed a new and terrible god, shattering their race.

Mankind seems to have two cracks at it (at least two anyway), and blobbed it both times.

Orks is Orks, and mostly care about getting into really good fights over total galactic dominance.

Tau? Well, we may see them fall to hubris in due course.

 Tawnis wrote:

While I don't think that GW would ever do this for MANY reasons, I personally think that, conceptually, a series set in 50k would be fascinating. The Aeldari are all but extinct, humanity has fallen from it's heights and fractured into many smaller states, the Tau are leading a great war of unification, and some new powerful race with some new ideals and agendas is rising in opposition somewhere else in the galaxy.

Wouldn't be 40K (or perhaps calling it 50K is more appropriate in this instance) unless the Tau accidentally managed to birth a new warp god.

Who knows if things went 10K years into the future it could be a Galaxy on the edge. The core systems devoured entirely by a vast swarm of Tyranids that are now locked into a steady slow feeding cycle as they devour literally everything.

The only survivors are in the outer rims of the Galaxy. Long lived races like the Eldar predicting that with the central systems gone and Tyranids devouring everything the Galaxy will start to unravel; systems breaking free and spinning off with their sun's into the dark.

Squats, being focused on the core, once again got eaten to nothing
Imperium and many other factions are fragmented and basically left like the Eldar - shattered races surviving.
Tau are supreme having united many forces and being based on the rim themsleves
Chaos is weaker; still present but weak due to the vast loss of life in the Galaxy
Necrons are building huge Ark ships and escaping with a plan to just sleep their way to a new Galaxy to find new organic bodies for themsleves.
Humanity is scattered though Holy Terra survived with the Emperor; but its power is lost.
Orks were having a ruddy good time until the Swarm appeared and ate out the middle of the Galaxy so they are weaker too and not having as much fun.

Of course, the interesting thing about the Tau is that they seem to be the product of entirely natural evolution.

Not created and nurtured by the Old Ones as were the Eldar and possibly the Orks.

Not kicked off then left unattended due to colossal defeat, as with humanity.

But a race which, despite the internet meme that the Eldar did it, which I’ve never seen corroborated, have developed entirely on their own.

And given humans, Eldar and possibly Orks are children of the Old Ones, and designed to be psychic in the end? It may well be that psychic races are absolutely not the natural order of things. That, like the Necrontyr, the Tau will never develop Psykers as the other races know them.

Caveat there of course is we only know of The Old Ones as a psychic race, and a powerful one at that. Whilst, so far as we know or are told, they seem to be native to our Galaxy? We don’t know how long they were kicking around before the Necrontyr got the arse with them. The Old Ones we know could be the result of billions, possibly trillions, of years of evolution.

As for my use of possibly regarding Orks? The original Necron Codex only mentioned Krorks. And frankly, it’ll take more than a common sound in a name to persuade me one is the antecedent of the other.

Now, they could be related. They could be the same species with the name drifting as language is wont to do. But, nor can we rule out that Orks as we know them are a corruption or genetically forced descendant of the Krork.

Perhaps the Krork were every bit as combat mental as Orks, but, like Klingons, had a strict sense or code of honour, possibly as a genetic level failsafe to prevent them just beating up and subjugating everything and everyone in sight. Then, at some point after the War In Heaven, some bright spark, perhaps even the Krork themselves, tried to genetically enhance themselves, and accidentally switched off the “no, not the children, bad boy, dirty boy, in your bed, on your rug, DIRTY BOY” limiter, among other things. And so we got to modern day Orkses.

Eumerin wrote:

 Tawnis wrote:

While I don't think that GW would ever do this for MANY reasons, I personally think that, conceptually, a series set in 50k would be fascinating. The Aeldari are all but extinct, humanity has fallen from it's heights and fractured into many smaller states, the Tau are leading a great war of unification, and some new powerful race with some new ideals and agendas is rising in opposition somewhere else in the galaxy.

Wouldn't be 40K (or perhaps calling it 50K is more appropriate in this instance) unless the Tau accidentally managed to birth a new warp god.

I wasn't thinking a new Warp God, but only because they Tau have little effect on the warp. We're this to be done, there's a few ways they could do 50k and still keeps the GrimDark feel of 40k:

- Expand on the Ethereals and have them grow more subtly corrupt and power hungry. The Tau after all need to stay at the top of the Hierarchy for the Ethereals to maintain their grip on power. When we see the Imperium, they've already excised most of their minorities and you know the whole purge the Xenos angle. The Ethereals could have a similar end goal, just with internal acceptance of oppression or a lower societal standing rather than extermination.

- There's a lot you could do with this idea that can scarily parallel a lot of real life issues that old 40k used to put more into the spotlight. You could have a strong breakdown of colonialism, even when it's "for the Greater Good", just because they aren't the Facsist Imperial State, doesn't make their war of unification any lest just when races choose not to join them. You could show a lot more of baseline people that actually have a proper moral compass being dragged along and trodden underfoot of people that put forward the persona of doing what's best for everyone when they are only empowering themselves and those close to them.

- Personally though, may favourite is the one I think would get the most backlash on the surface, but would be the most interesting take. Dial back on the Ethereal mind control schtick and lean more into the older Tau lore where they were a lot closer to the "good guys" of the setting. The GrimDark of this would be how hard it actually is to do a be "good" the wider your empire grows, the more responsibility is on your shoulders. How many compromises will be made, how many red lines thought impassible will have to be crossed, and in the end, will they slowly turn into the Imperium that they thought so little of, or will a race finally be able to rise about and do better? (The finally question should never really be answered but it should be constantly asked.)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:
Who knows if things went 10K years into the future it could be a Galaxy on the edge. The core systems devoured entirely by a vast swarm of Tyranids that are now locked into a steady slow feeding cycle as they devour literally everything.

The only survivors are in the outer rims of the Galaxy. Long lived races like the Eldar predicting that with the central systems gone and Tyranids devouring everything the Galaxy will start to unravel; systems breaking free and spinning off with their sun's into the dark.

Squats, being focused on the core, once again got eaten to nothing
Imperium and many other factions are fragmented and basically left like the Eldar - shattered races surviving.
Tau are supreme having united many forces and being based on the rim themsleves
Chaos is weaker; still present but weak due to the vast loss of life in the Galaxy
Necrons are building huge Ark ships and escaping with a plan to just sleep their way to a new Galaxy to find new organic bodies for themsleves.
Humanity is scattered though Holy Terra survived with the Emperor; but its power is lost.
Orks were having a ruddy good time until the Swarm appeared and ate out the middle of the Galaxy so they are weaker too and not having as much fun.

That's also true, though it breaks with the whole cycle motif, it would be a cool story as well.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Of course, the interesting thing about the Tau is that they seem to be the product of entirely natural evolution.

Not created and nurtured by the Old Ones as were the Eldar and possibly the Orks.

Not kicked off then left unattended due to colossal defeat, as with humanity.

But a race which, despite the internet meme that the Eldar did it, which I’ve never seen corroborated, have developed entirely on their own.

That is not internet meme. It's from Black Library's first Xenology. It's an in-character conclusion drawn by a Tech-Priest (who turns out to be not what he seems). He basically identifies the organ on an Ethereal's forehead as similar to that of a Q'orl queen, and identifies a case of Eldar Harlequins capturing a queen in the past before the appearance of the Tau Ethereals, and thus draws the conclusion that the Eldar had a hand in engineering the Ethereal caste.

It's also hinted at again in Xenology that a last Old One, named Qah had survived all the way up to the Fall of the Eldar and had possibly been still tinkering away with various species.

In the various Tau codices and various short stories and Black Library fiction, it is certainly hinted at that there is something beyond just ideology and rhetoric behind the Ethereals' ability to calm the Tau, at least when an Ethereal is physically present. It's been suggested anything from pheromones to subtle psychic ability or something else entirely, and it is one of those unexplained GW mysteries that they will probably never fully reveal.

The following is my headcanon:

A last surviving Old One, not Qah, continues tinkering away on the Tau once their world is shielded behind the warp storm that it has used to conveniently block the Imperium from destroying the Stone Age Tau. Going in the opposite direction from the past, when they engineered greater psychic ability in the Eldar, this Old One tries to go the Necrontyr path of material science and lessened psychic signature. When the Tau internal tensions boil over, it tweaks and engineers the Ethereal caste to unify the Tau. Maybe it manipulates or persuades some Harlequins to kidnap the Q'orl queen, or maybe that is a simple red herring and wrong conclusion drawn by the "Tech-Priest" who is .

Reasoning: Tinkering with races is what the Old Ones are known for. The Eldar aren't really described as having a lot of interest in creating intelligent species to serve their purposes.

Found an interesting datapoint when reading my Planetstrike copy:


Billions of Tau killed in a meteor impact, but still some survivors for the Orks to fight (presumably in shielded military installations).

This suggests that at least Sept worlds have Tau populations in the billions. If the population for a Sept can be less than 10 billion, presumably most of the population is concentrated on the principle world with outpost worlds sparsely populated.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Iracundus wrote:

Spoiler:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Of course, the interesting thing about the Tau is that they seem to be the product of entirely natural evolution.

Not created and nurtured by the Old Ones as were the Eldar and possibly the Orks.

Not kicked off then left unattended due to colossal defeat, as with humanity.

But a race which, despite the internet meme that the Eldar did it, which I’ve never seen corroborated, have developed entirely on their own.

That is not internet meme. It's from Black Library's first Xenology. It's an in-character conclusion drawn by a Tech-Priest (who turns out to be not what he seems). He basically identifies the organ on an Ethereal's forehead as similar to that of a Q'orl queen, and identifies a case of Eldar Harlequins capturing a queen in the past before the appearance of the Tau Ethereals, and thus draws the conclusion that the Eldar had a hand in engineering the Ethereal caste.

It's also hinted at again in Xenology that a last Old One, named Qah had survived all the way up to the Fall of the Eldar and had possibly been still tinkering away with various species.

In the various Tau codices and various short stories and Black Library fiction, it is certainly hinted at that there is something beyond just ideology and rhetoric behind the Ethereals' ability to calm the Tau, at least when an Ethereal is physically present. It's been suggested anything from pheromones to subtle psychic ability or something else entirely, and it is one of those unexplained GW mysteries that they will probably never fully reveal.

The following is my headcanon:

A last surviving Old One, not Qah, continues tinkering away on the Tau once their world is shielded behind the warp storm that it has used to conveniently block the Imperium from destroying the Stone Age Tau. Going in the opposite direction from the past, when they engineered greater psychic ability in the Eldar, this Old One tries to go the Necrontyr path of material science and lessened psychic signature. When the Tau internal tensions boil over, it tweaks and engineers the Ethereal caste to unify the Tau. Maybe it manipulates or persuades some Harlequins to kidnap the Q'orl queen, or maybe that is a simple red herring and wrong conclusion drawn by the "Tech-Priest" who is [spoiler]actually a Necron

.

Reasoning: Tinkering with races is what the Old Ones are known for. The Eldar aren't really described as having a lot of interest in creating intelligent species to serve their purposes.
[/spoiler]

Regarding Xenology:

 Haighus wrote:
Found an interesting datapoint when reading my Planetstrike copy:


Billions of Tau killed in a meteor impact, but still some survivors for the Orks to fight (presumably in shielded military installations).

This suggests that at least Sept worlds have Tau populations in the billions. If the population for a Sept can be less than 10 billion, presumably most of the population is concentrated on the principle world with outpost worlds sparsely populated.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Iracundus wrote:

Spoiler:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Of course, the interesting thing about the Tau is that they seem to be the product of entirely natural evolution.

Not created and nurtured by the Old Ones as were the Eldar and possibly the Orks.

Not kicked off then left unattended due to colossal defeat, as with humanity.

But a race which, despite the internet meme that the Eldar did it, which I’ve never seen corroborated, have developed entirely on their own.

That is not internet meme. It's from Black Library's first Xenology. It's an in-character conclusion drawn by a Tech-Priest (who turns out to be not what he seems). He basically identifies the organ on an Ethereal's forehead as similar to that of a Q'orl queen, and identifies a case of Eldar Harlequins capturing a queen in the past before the appearance of the Tau Ethereals, and thus draws the conclusion that the Eldar had a hand in engineering the Ethereal caste.

It's also hinted at again in Xenology that a last Old One, named Qah had survived all the way up to the Fall of the Eldar and had possibly been still tinkering away with various species.

In the various Tau codices and various short stories and Black Library fiction, it is certainly hinted at that there is something beyond just ideology and rhetoric behind the Ethereals' ability to calm the Tau, at least when an Ethereal is physically present. It's been suggested anything from pheromones to subtle psychic ability or something else entirely, and it is one of those unexplained GW mysteries that they will probably never fully reveal.

The following is my headcanon:

A last surviving Old One, not Qah, continues tinkering away on the Tau once their world is shielded behind the warp storm that it has used to conveniently block the Imperium from destroying the Stone Age Tau. Going in the opposite direction from the past, when they engineered greater psychic ability in the Eldar, this Old One tries to go the Necrontyr path of material science and lessened psychic signature. When the Tau internal tensions boil over, it tweaks and engineers the Ethereal caste to unify the Tau. Maybe it manipulates or persuades some Harlequins to kidnap the Q'orl queen, or maybe that is a simple red herring and wrong conclusion drawn by the "Tech-Priest" who is [spoiler]actually a Necron

.

Reasoning: Tinkering with races is what the Old Ones are known for. The Eldar aren't really described as having a lot of interest in creating intelligent species to serve their purposes.
[/spoiler]

Regarding Xenology:

Spoiler:

IIRC, the techpriest is a genuine adept of the Mechanicus. It is the missing Inquisitor Ralei, the master of the techpriest, that was a secret Necron and reappears at the end of the book.

'

Sorry, I stand corrected. It's been a long time and I don't have that book on hand now for reference.

No worries, doesn't change the overall point

Been mulling over my post yesterday- the Planetstrike passage does raise some questions. Billions of Tau on a world does undermine the Tau surprise about Olympus having 13 billion, although I suppose they could consider 2 billion to be a great achievement of Tau society on a single world and that would technically be billions (plural).

Also depends on the world you’re from.

Humanity has many planets with populations well into the multi-billions.

But, it also has heavily mechanised and automated Agri-Worlds with a pretty spare human, non-Servitor population.

And within The Imperium, despite the rapacious appetite for recruitment of the Imperial Guard? The overwhelming majority of its citizens will never, ever leave their own planet. Ever. And you might be lucky to leave your village, sector, township, sub-level or work zone.

You’ll definitely know there are other planets within the Imperium. But for some agri-world peon who’s met perhaps a hundred other horrid smelly hoomans in their entire existence? The thought of a single hive’s population could blow your tiny mind to the point of absolute incredulity.

For Tau worlds? Despite being a cosmopolitan species, it may be like the USA. The USA, a country often scoffed at due to how few of its citizens travel abroad. Which seems daft and narrow minded at first equally narrow minded glance. But when you realise just how vast its territories are, and the wide variety of environments (Deserts! Plains! Forests! Villages, towns and cities of every shape and size! Paradise beaches! Alaska!), and you see there’s…..just less reason to leave your home country, because it has pretty much everything short of a tropical rain forest no wait Alaska has the largest so even that!

So any given Tau sept world could be much the same. A unified world with a bit of everything, meaning less need to go off-world to see something new.

It would then follow your sole impression of your own culture is your home world, which could be relatively sparsely populated, allowing the individual to be staggered at a population of 13,000,000,000, despite that being nowt compared to other Tau worlds (especially inner sphere ones I’d expect, being the oldest and longest established)

Whilst that is a fair point, the surprised individuals are a fairly high ranking Water Caste diplomat who deals with human relations and a fairly high ranking Fire Caste commander. I don't think these are provincial Tau who have never left the planet. The diplomat definitely has, they meet the Last Chancers in neutral space to collect them.

Wait, Alaska has the world's largest tropical rainforest? Tropical? I thought that was the Amazon.

Edit: ah, I looked it up. Alaska has the world's largest surviving temperate rainforest. Well, there is always Hawaii or Puerto Rico for tropical rainforest.

Sorry, my lack of clarity. Alaska has the USA’s largest rainforest.

It’s still going to depend where the Water Caste is from, and how high ranking they might be.

If they’re slumming it talking to “mere Guardsmen”, it doesn’t strike me as someone especially high up, and so may know no more about the wider Galaxy than necessary.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Sorry, my lack of clarity. Alaska has the USA’s largest rainforest.

It’s still going to depend where the Water Caste is from, and how high ranking they might be.

If they’re slumming it talking to “mere Guardsmen”, it doesn’t strike me as someone especially high up, and so may know no more about the wider Galaxy than necessary.

The "mere guardsmen" are
I think it is the weakest of the 4 Last Chancers novels because half the book is a training montage that drags on waaay to long, but once the Tau are involved the book is really solid and fun. Overall I like the Last Chancer books a lot, kind of like a dark version of Cain.

Edit: The relevant quote is on page 1 of this thread.

I went back to the passage, and Shas'elan is a Shas'el commanding a Cadre, and is below a single Shas'o commanding all military forces on the planet. The target is also of Shas'o.

Fair, haven’t read those books and couldn’t remember the context of your earlier quote.

It could be the Tau pretending to be shocked. Their facial expressions needn’t be the same as human, and the Guard may not have been around enough to know when someone is acting.

Or it’s just another background clash which provides us with so much conversation

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Fair, haven’t read those books and couldn’t remember the context of your earlier quote.

It could be the Tau pretending to be shocked. Their facial expressions needn’t be the same as human, and the Guard may not have been around enough to know when someone is acting.

Or it’s just another background clash which provides us with so much conversation

Its certainly possible. I'd expect something like that from the Water Caste diplomat for sure, the Fire warrior isn't as good at being subtle though. There is quite a lot of back-and-forth between the two groups trying to unsettle each other and glean information without revealing too much themselves. It is a good read.

Huh interesting, I suppose that depends on how big of a Tau settlement Atari Vo is. Ie: if its an important core world that has been built up for a long time vs a periphery, and what percentage of the population 'billions' is. So if this was a central and big important world for an entire section of the Tau empire, it could easily be in the many billions and still have them shocked at 13 billion for some rando periphery world Kage is from. On the flip side, if it is just some random unimportant world to the Tau with a population in the multi billions than it raises the question on population again. I don't doubt Tau worlds can have billions of people - we have that here now, its just how many of them and what percentage of the empire considering on the grand scheme of things they are galactic newcomers.

Tau likely have more concern for their citizens than the Imperium.

Imperium losing Billions is a statistic in the grand scheme of things to them. They have a million worlds; they have a vast empire and news from one end might never reach the other side.

Tau are smaller on all fronts so the deaths are much more readily felt and those who die are likely related to those on core worlds by ties that are much closer. So even if the number isn't crippling to them as a race, its still an impact that they feel far more keenly than the Imperium does.

It's not just a political or numbers thing but a social one as well. The Imperium loses people to industrial operation (not just accidents). It's used to the idea of treating people as disposable.
The Tau aren't. They CAN dispose of people in large numbers, but its not engrained into their society.

There’s definite Law of Big Numbers in play.

Right now, we’ve what, 8,000,000,000 of us humans? Certainly around that.

Yet, to a Hive World? That’s a mere drop in the ocean population wise.

It’s what to me makes humanity such an interesting force. The numbers of the Ork, married to the psychic potential of the Eldar, and the technological base of the Tau, all to lesser extents, but combined a horrific combination to face off against.

 kurhanik wrote:
Huh interesting, I suppose that depends on how big of a Tau settlement Atari Vo is. Ie: if its an important core world that has been built up for a long time vs a periphery, and what percentage of the population 'billions' is. So if this was a central and big important world for an entire section of the Tau empire, it could easily be in the many billions and still have them shocked at 13 billion for some rando periphery world Kage is from. On the flip side, if it is just some random unimportant world to the Tau with a population in the multi billions than it raises the question on population again. I don't doubt Tau worlds can have billions of people - we have that here now, its just how many of them and what percentage of the empire considering on the grand scheme of things they are galactic newcomers.

Yeah, that is fair.

I'm going to do some more digging and see if I can pull up any more info about the relevant worlds.

So Atari Vo seems to be a 2nd Sphere colony on the Tau side of the Damocles Gulf. It doesn't seem to have achieved full Sept status at the time of the Ork invasion (815.M41) and I think it was probably administered as part of the Dal'yth Sept as they had supplied reinforcements to face the Orks before Farsight arrived from the Enclaves.

The Farsight Enclaves lore states that millions died with each asteroid impact, and describes the world as one of beautiful cities so it was probably very urban. It does suggest established Tau worlds can be very populous though, as this is not even a full Sept.

To me, nobody touched the important aspect of this question: "What percentage of the Tau empire is Tau" is not the most important for answering, but rather, what percentage has access to faster-than-light travel?

Tau Empire has been established as doing microjumps if I recall correctly in the latest lore. Not quite as fast as using astronomicon but not quite as slow as sublight travel.

If the transported species has a strong Tau species bias, then it doesn't matter if Tau are a minority - the conquered species stay in their worlds unless the Ethereals decide otherwise.

I don't think species such as the Kroot or Vespids have their own insterstellas transports. They can only be ferried by Tau where the Tau want them to go "for the greater good".

As such, most of the Tau Empire fighting force will be made of "Ethnic Tau" since they are the most reliable and willing to fight.

***

By the way, several sources describe the Kroot as being "mercenaries" which receive regular payment by the Tau. This can illuminate several things, but once of them is that Tau don't normally use "totalitarian social engineering" on conquered species.

Several posters seem to be hellbent on making the Tau this absolute evil that starves planets because, even if lore never even hinted at that.

Also, the Dawn of War ending is not much evidence of anything regarding mass sterilization; firs off, it is only stated as a rumor or possibility. Second of all, the narrator always speaks from the POV of imperial propaganda, whatever the ending. And thirdly, the canon victors of Dark Crusade are the Blood Raven Space Marines, meaning the events in the Tau victory didn't even happen.
See reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/amb0xh/who_were_the_canonical_victors_of_the_dawn_of_war/

***

Regarding population levels themselves, I am under the impression Tau don't live as long as humans, so if their generations are shorter, they get population faster, even if their family sizes are about the same to human ones.

Another thing to take into account is that the Tau seem to have a way lower cultural/social tolerance to bad living conditions. Sort of an Europe vs Africa / South Asia analogue. So, they want to colonize more worlds to expand their empire / population not only because of a commitment to the "luminous greater good", but because they perceive their population saturation to be reached much faster, similar to Europeans.

In that regard, some have said that despite the mecha marketing gimmick, the inspiration of the Tau has more in common with the British Empire than with the "communist chinese" that many people seem to ascribe to them. In fact, if we are to take the Dark Crusade cinematic, it seems to have a lot more in common with USA pioneers reducing the native population (and other similar cases) than with anything associated to twentieth century collectivist ideology.

***

As a footnote, my personal theory (that I am fully convinced nobody at GW thought of...) regarding "ethereal mind control" is that Ethereals are Tau "blanks". Humans, a latent psychic race attuned to the Warp, are described as having an innate feeling of revulsion for blanks - but Tau, a non-psychic race, may get an opposite feeling of reverence.

Kroot absolutely have their own interstellar transports- Warspheres. These are large, powerful vessels and range far outside of the Tau Empire, which is why Kroot mercenaries can be found throughout the galaxy.

Kroot fighting alongside the Tau are not mercenaries, generally speaking, and they are not supposed to engage in mercenary activities as part of the empire. It does not seem to be something the Tau police, if they can police it.

Other auxiliaries have FTL space craft. The Nicassar form an important part of Tau fleets, and obviously Gue'vesa (humans) have warp-capable craft that will be present in the empire. I think it is a fair point that transportation is probably primarily controlled by the Tau air caste and most other species are fairly limited, but at least two are not.

The kroot do receive payment from the T'au:

''Since then, the Kroot core worlds have fought loyally for the T'au and Greater Good, provided they receive sufficient payment.''

Reference is Tau Codex, 6th edition, page 49.

Furthermore, it seems that the Kroot fighting as mercenaries that have the battlespheres are a different branch to the Tau Empire kroot. The Tau Empire kroot decided to not re-urbanize their world and to keep a primitive lifestyle after the Ork attack. It would seem unlikely that the Battlespheres, which came from the Industrial kroot, could be mantained with near stone-age technology, but that's just my impression.

How do the T'au pay the Kroot, what is the tender and what could possibly a Kroot buy with it given they reject most technology, is anyone's guess. But they probably gain status by service and can buy, huh, more kroot hounds or something. The point is, the Kroot weren't negatively coerced into serving and it seems more like a non-interventionist mutual benefit agreement, though they did make an oath of allegiance and owe a debt of blood due to the liberation of their homeworlds.

On the other hand, Vespid leaders were said to be provided with some VR helmets that made them "see the Greater Good" so this is more on a case-by-case basis, or else the Tau Empire becomes more authoritarian over time, much like a certain other empire. In any case, it doesn't seem like the T'au will sterilize and demographically replace the Kroot any time soon, or ever.

***

As for the Nicassar, they are psykers but not warp capable independently, in fact not FTL capable at all:

''Their spaceships are known as Dhows and are small, maneuverable, yet elegant yachts propelled by the psychic powers of the captain. But the Nicassar lack any real interstellar capability. As such, they are often towed by T'au ships.''

Reference is "To Unite the Stars: Tau Vessels, pg. 107 Battlefleet Gothic Resources"

So, that explicitly says that the Nicassar are entirely dependent on the ethnic T'au for superluminic interstellar travel. Which reinforces my previous notion.

The Tau seem to breed like rabbits. They have a short lifespan, which means they probably reproduce very rapidly. It's reasonable to believe they still outnumber any other race by a large margin.

NimoStar wrote:
The kroot do receive payment from the T'au:

''Since then, the Kroot core worlds have fought loyally for the T'au and Greater Good, provided they receive sufficient payment.''

Reference is Tau Codex, 6th edition, page 49.

Furthermore, it seems that the Kroot fighting as mercenaries that have the battlespheres are a different branch to the Tau Empire kroot. The Tau Empire kroot decided to not re-urbanize their world and to keep a primitive lifestyle after the Ork attack. It would seem unlikely that the Battlespheres, which came from the Industrial kroot, could be mantained with near stone-age technology, but that's just my impression.

How do the T'au pay the Kroot, what is the tender and what could possibly a Kroot buy with it given they reject most technology, is anyone's guess. But they probably gain status by service and can buy, huh, more kroot hounds or something. The point is, the Kroot weren't negatively coerced into serving and it seems more like a non-interventionist mutual benefit agreement, though they did make an oath of allegiance and owe a debt of blood due to the liberation of their homeworlds.

I don't think fighting for money means they are mercenaries. Most modern soldiers have a salary and tend to be pretty unhappy if it stops getting paid (sometimes at risk of couping the government if it gets really bad). Imperial Guardsmen get a salary of some kind, and they are frequently press-ganged.

There are different branches of Kroot, but they do intermix. Pech is also not the only Kroot world in the Tau Empire. Regardless, Kroot Warspheres are common enough in the empire that they appear in Tau warfleets, although the Kroot don't like doing this without significant recompense as Warspheres are also residential habitats.

I'd assume Kroot are paid in meat primarily, but they could still benefit from receiving money (which could be used to buy meat) or material goods, especially weaponry or weapon materials. Tau firearms are high-value items sometimes wielded by shapers, for example, and the modern Kroot rifle fires Tau ammunition to boost its damage output. If you take the parallel of the native tribes of North Eastern America in the early modern era, they had little interest in European money, but would trade for European blades, firearms, and for wampum beads that were culturally important.

On the other hand, Vespid leaders were said to be provided with some VR helmets that made them "see the Greater Good" so this is more on a case-by-case basis, or else the Tau Empire becomes more authoritarian over time, much like a certain other empire. In any case, it doesn't seem like the T'au will sterilize and demographically replace the Kroot any time soon, or ever.

I don't think anyone was claiming Tau will aim to sterilise the Kroot, at least whilst they remain a useful ally for the foreseable.

The discussions about covert genocides were prior to Tau forces annexing a world- essentially engineering a situation where the problems of a high-population world are already alleviated before they take control, and they can come in as the "saviours" to the populace even though they cut the supply routes in the first place. This would be a fairly classic colonial tactic, so fits right into the current Tau MO. This is conjecture, but is based on the fact that the Tau Empire will annex worlds by the gun if they cannot do it via peaceful means.

As for the Nicassar, they are psykers but not warp capable independently, in fact not FTL capable at all:

''Their spaceships are known as Dhows and are small, maneuverable, yet elegant yachts propelled by the psychic powers of the captain. But the Nicassar lack any real interstellar capability. As such, they are often towed by T'au ships.''

Reference is "To Unite the Stars: Tau Vessels, pg. 107 Battlefleet Gothic Resources"

So, that explicitly says that the Nicassar are entirely dependent on the ethnic T'au for superluminic interstellar travel. Which reinforces my previous notion.

I did forget the Nicassar couldn't travel faster than light. They actually can travel interstellar (and had an interstellar domain before the Tau conquered them) but did it using sublightspeed vessels as they are able to hibernate for centuries. Hence the "no real interstellar capability"- they are easily outmanoeuvred by any opponent who can travel faster than light.