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The Tau also benefit from forward planning, where the Imperium never had that luxury.

Was man’s original exodus to the stars planned in advance? Almost certainly. Identify the nearest habitable worlds, send a colony ship, rinse and repeat.

But The Great Crusade was trying to reunite what already existed. And that was necessarily somewhat haphazard. And in the aftermath of the Heresy, what then remained was even more scattered as rebel worlds got a right kicking at best, and destroyed at worst. And it’s never really consolidated things since then. Partly due to internal disorganisation, partly due to being under perpetual siege from multiple hostile parties.

The Tau plans are undone by their innocence all the time. They are only just working out that Demons are real; that the Warp is a thing; that the Imperium is actually really massive; has insane tech and resources AND are bonkers insane and Xenophobic

The Imperium does have forward planning; the issue is its mired in dogma, rhetoric, fear and internal power struggles. Which causes the plan to falter and shift all the time. It's also so massive that it will never have a single plan; it will always be layers of different levels of plans.

Such as how a group of Marines might plan to protect a world; but the Custodes will plan to destroy it to save Terra

I'm not sure how true that is anymore.

They are in their 5th Sphere of Expansion, they had multiple wars against Chaos forces and learned how to hunt Chaos cults. They control a stable Warp gateway and several of their client and allied civilizations have their own psykers.

People overfocus on the Tau's initial reactions to stuff like Titans and Hive Worlds, but the Tau learned how to fight Titans and nowadays they have worlds that put most Hive Worlds to shame.

Yeah. That Tau’s naivety has rapidly diminished. They recognise Psykers as mind science,

But their expansions are still planned carefully.

And whilst you raise some interesting points about the Imperium’s internal nonsense? It doesn’t change that it’s scattered and fragmented territories aren’t a direct result of that. Rather, it’s a legacy of its creation. Sure, the latter has made the former far worse. But it’s not the original cause,

 Tyran wrote:
I'm not sure how true that is anymore.

They are in their 5th Sphere of Expansion, they had multiple wars against Chaos forces and learned how to hunt Chaos cults. They control a stable Warp gateway and several of their client and allied civilizations have their own psykers.

People overfocus on the Tau's initial reactions to stuff like Titans and Hive Worlds, but the Tau learned how to fight Titans and nowadays they have worlds that put most Hive Worlds to shame.

It thematically doesn't work IMO, but apparently some Tau worlds now have populations in the trillions.

Which, in terms of current timelines, means they went from being shocked at populations in the double digit billions to having trillions themselves in something like a decade.

Not a fan.

Well, one Tau was shocked at that if memory serves?

Which is a bit like someone from my town expressing shock at how densely populated Tokyo or Beijing is. Yes to that person it’s a truly bizarre number of people, but not representative of the UK population’s experience as a whole.

Yeah but we are very had at understanding near or exponential growth.

the tau have a cultural breeding program that provides governmental support for child rearing (creches) and have made reproducing for the greater good, they are going to produce populations that explode in size.

2.1 is replacement. So say they were producing 3.1 children per woman. A planet with 8 billion people, of which 50% are female and (at least in humans) 2 billion are capable of having children. 3.1 X 2 is 6.2 billion children. Half of which will also have 3.1 children which is another 9.61 billion children.

If you have continual population growth it picks up very quickly.

Now they also have population movement in a way humanity doesn't. They wouldn't breed to a trillion people in a decade, but they would get their if they were importing people for greater good reasons.

10 planets with 2 billion women all producing 3.1 children each is an additional 62 billion children. 31x3.1 is another 96 billion people. Collectively in less than 100 years those planets have created 158 billion more tau.

And tau live shorter lives so they would reproduce at younger ages to a human.

 Hellebore wrote:
Yeah but we are very had at understanding near or exponential growth.

the tau have a cultural breeding program that provides governmental support for child rearing (creches) and have made reproducing for the greater good, they are going to produce populations that explode in size.

2.1 is replacement. So say they were producing 3.1 children per woman. A planet with 8 billion people, of which 50% are female and (at least in humans) 2 billion are capable of having children. 3.1 X 2 is 6.2 billion children. Half of which will also have 3.1 children which is another 9.61 billion children.

If you have continual population growth it picks up very quickly.

Now they also have population movement in a way humanity doesn't. They wouldn't breed to a trillion people in a decade, but they would get their if they were importing people for greater good reasons.

10 planets with 2 billion women all producing 3.1 children each is an additional 62 billion children. 31x3.1 is another 96 billion people. Collectively in less than 100 years those planets have created 158 billion more tau.

And tau live shorter lives so they would reproduce at younger ages to a human.

I don't have a problem with Tau reaching larger population sizes. My issue is with them having such a dramatic increase in such a short time, especially as the quality of life for citizens of the Tau empire is generally shown as being fairly high, which would be much harder to sustain with dramatic population expansions.

Whilst we don't know what Tau reproduction times are (extrapolating from Earth critters is always going to be problematic for aliens), the limiting step is not going to be the actual Tau, it will be the infrastructure that supports them.

When it comes down to it, Tau society was portrayed as being fairly low population, with exceptionally-high levels of automation making individual Tau very productive and the lives of Tau generally valued highly. Quality vs the quantity of the Imperium. Then it suddenly jumps up to very high population levels, which is possible to do with a reasonable quality of life (if the Earth was covered with a city similar in density and amenities to Tokyo, for example, it would approach 1 trillion in population), but not in such a short time frame. The logistics and engineering required are immense, and if the Tau can build ecumenopoli in a decade they have a level of industrial output that I don't think any of the other factions can hope to match short of the Tyranids and will conquer the galaxy in short order.

In practice I don't think whoever wrote that lore put much, if any thought into it, but here we are. It is particularly annoying, because logistics and handling annexing hyper-popopulous Imperial worlds was previously an interesting discussion point for the Tau Empire and their challenges in breaking out of their region of space. Now that has apparently been handwaved in short order.


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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Well, one Tau was shocked at that if memory serves?

Which is a bit like someone from my town expressing shock at how densely populated Tokyo or Beijing is. Yes to that person it’s a truly bizarre number of people, but not representative of the UK population’s experience as a whole.

There were a couple of sources, but the one I'm referencing was from a mid-level Tau diplomat and mid-ranking Tau commander who stated the Hive population of 12 billion was more than the population of the entire Sept they were currently in. So they had enough awareness to know what population their Sept had. This was a frontier Sept, but I don't see any particular reason to think they'd react in such a way if the Tau Sept or one of the other major Septs also routinely had single cities with populations in the billions.

IIRC, the other main source for Tau struggling with grasping Imperial population sizes was around the invasion of Agrellan, later renamed Mu'gulath Bay by the Tau. This was a hive world.

Is the infrastructure not also down to their planning?

I mean, in the modern world we tend to see a depressing amount of Short Termism. Nothing seems to be arrange on a predictive or anticipatory model.

The Tau have a star empire, and all the resources that bring. And an entire caste dedicated to building and developing whatever it is they need.

Now, I want to make it clear, just in case, that I don’t think we can assume an equal percentage of population across each caste. So I can’t put any kind of number of how many Earth Caste their might be.

But from what we see, and with drone/AI support? They’re clearly and evidently up to the task. Not just for weapons and equipment for war, but all the necessary infrastructure of the wider society.

And best of all? From what we can see, absolute cooperation.

Again, I have no problem with the Tau developing an ecumenopolis. They certainly have the dynamism, organisation, and approach to technology to achieve it eventually. I have a problem with them apparently doing it on such a scale in essentially the blink of an eye.

As I said, I'm pretty confident this was due to thoughtless writing throwing out numbers willy nilly, but here we are. Trillion is a very big number, we are talking on the scale of hundreds to thousands of present-day Earth in population. It requires planet-wide Tokyo at the very least.

The only way to rationalise it is as you say, the Tau Empire has dedicated the entire resources of its empire into deliberately creating an ecumenopolis as quickly as possible.

Why? Shrug. They may wish to have a large population reserve for soldiery etc. Doesn't really match their previous style of a highly-automated economy that reasonably values life, but maybe they've recognised they need to have more bodies to throw into the meatgrinder of the Galaxy.

Is it actually reasonable they've done that at the same time as expanding with many new colonies, fighting major wars on multiple fronts including on home turf (which means rebuilding from war), and generally improving and fortifying other existing colonies and septs? Probably not, but it is lore now.

Did they confirm its pure Tau population and not Tau+others.

Cause if its "Tau" in that it includes other species that they've absorbed into their population then that would easily account for some of the very rapid population rise.


Tau are very clearly in an expansionist phase; rising populations supported by a war machine that's expanding their boarders and gaining rapid and fresh resources to bring into the fold. Even if they have to develop worlds they take; they are clearly expanding on all fronts with a boom situation.

You also need a large population to drive expansion. I mean, the bods in your colony have to come from somewhere. There seems little point trying to setup a new colony by overly denuding an existing settled world of able bodies.

I don’t know if we’ve background numbers, but presumably each new colony includes representation from each Caste, because their society demands that to work. And it’s by no means demanded it’s only a lucky few. We could be talking colony populations in the millions to begin with.

Part of the issue is the scale of the setting - its just so far outside of anything we normally deal with that breaks our brains a bit.

Even in video games that deal with 4x civilization building; most will represent population in really small relative numbers. They don't have you managing billions upon billions in numbers and balancing their growth/reduction on that scale. You're normally dealing with way smaller values

So in a sense even if GW does get the numbers right; most of us have no real foundation to actually assess if those numbers are right or wrong. Couple that to timescales in the setting always being a bit of the very wonky side of things; couple to warp manifestations; unreliable narrators; undisclosed elements and so forth and sometimes you have to regard the lore as less hard numbers and more as numbers being used to convey an idea


Consider if you went back to 1800 or even 1900 and told people of the time that the worlds population would be 8bilion people and still growing most would consider them to be impossible numbers. And yet they are real and that's with limits such as one-child-policy; western women in the workplace/other life roles and thus not reproducing at a rapid rate; food and medical shortages.
Given the high standard of living the Tau aim for - a population where their females are encouraged to reproduce with a high level of medical support; easy access to food and so forth and you could easily have an extremely rapid population rise.

Also depending how communist you like your Tau? (They’re socialist though. Not the same thing)

The cost of raising a child is removed. Housing, clothing, food, trips, education, toys, books and who knows what else all cost money.

The Tau, so far as I understand it, have a idealised version of a socialist society. All pulling together for the greater good, nobody going without unnecessarily etc.

Which possibly suggests a Star Trek Starfleet economy. In that there isn’t one as we’d recognise it. Rank/Social Position brings reward in the form of nicer quarters, maybe access to fancier replicator patterns and so on, but not wealth.

Again, not especially up on the modern lore so happy to be better informed if someone has a canon source either way on that one.

My impression is Tau slip between communist and socialist. So yes if the higher ups decide that population expansion is important they can certainly dedicate society toward that goal. Removing barriers; encouraging reproduction; discouraging contraception; ensuring that there are ample jobs and roles for the new population to move into.

 Haighus wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
I'm not sure how true that is anymore.

They are in their 5th Sphere of Expansion, they had multiple wars against Chaos forces and learned how to hunt Chaos cults. They control a stable Warp gateway and several of their client and allied civilizations have their own psykers.

People overfocus on the Tau's initial reactions to stuff like Titans and Hive Worlds, but the Tau learned how to fight Titans and nowadays they have worlds that put most Hive Worlds to shame.

It thematically doesn't work IMO, but apparently some Tau worlds now have populations in the trillions.

Which, in terms of current timelines, means they went from being shocked at populations in the double digit billions to having trillions themselves in something like a decade.

Not a fan.

GW? Inconsistent with numbers? Surely not.

Overread wrote:Did they confirm its pure Tau population and not Tau+others.

Cause if its "Tau" in that it includes other species that they've absorbed into their population then that would easily account for some of the very rapid population rise.


Tau are very clearly in an expansionist phase; rising populations supported by a war machine that's expanding their boarders and gaining rapid and fresh resources to bring into the fold. Even if they have to develop worlds they take; they are clearly expanding on all fronts with a boom situation.

There is booms, and there is going from Septs having populations in the low billions to single worlds (Sa'cea) having populations in the trillions. Sa'cea is a 1st Expansion world, it is plausible for it to have a very high population eventually, but that just wasn't the impression given prior to 9th edition. A few billion just wouldn't be notable if there was a major Tau world with trillions.

Again, I have no problem with the Tau empire as a whole having trillions in population, or them trying to build an ecumenopolis. But it just suddenly appearing with a population of trillions is annoying.

Overread wrote:My impression is Tau slip between communist and socialist. So yes if the higher ups decide that population expansion is important they can certainly dedicate society toward that goal. Removing barriers; encouraging reproduction; discouraging contraception; ensuring that there are ample jobs and roles for the new population to move into.

Tau are not communist at all. This veers a little close to real world politics, but communism is definitionally a stateless society, so any nation state cannot be communist. The Tau empire is most definitely a state with a government. The Tau Empire certainly seems to have a very collectivist economy and would probably be considered a form of authoritarian socialism by modern Earth standards.

People call the Tau commies because the Imperium is the literal worst level of authoritarian nightmare possible.

Take every dictatorship, despotic monarchy and fanatic theocracy and combine them into one horrible mess and that'd make even the silly mustache man look like a tree hugging hippie.

As for Tau population, if we exclude the addition of allied races, the fact the T'au had a huge period where there wouldn't have been a declining population due to conflict would set them up quite well for a basis to build a stable and rapidly expanding population base. Throw in the use of cryo stasis needed for their space travel and you don't have the same loses the Imperium takes just using Warp travel.

They won't be hitting Hive world levels of populations except maybe on their core Sept worlds but every world that joins the Empire is another place for the Tau to grow.

Do we know much of anything about Tau reproduction? We know humans on average only have one kid at a time. But there are many species you get lots of little ones from a single pregnancy. For instance, lovely tiny borky Pupper, and teeny tiny fuzzy Kittens.

If the Tau yield is even two on average? They’re going to have a much faster population increase than us.

Logistics, logistics, logistics is the problem. The ideal IG regiment does not get send to their preferred warzone due to logistics; they get send to the closest warzone. War is also unpredictable, so not ideal for any planned action. Guilliman is in charge, and he's supposed to be the best administrator Primarch, he can't do much better in the grand scheme of things, so there is little hope but to keep the status quo.

 Gert wrote:
People call the Tau commies because the Imperium is the literal worst level of authoritarian nightmare possible.

Take every dictatorship, despotic monarchy and fanatic theocracy and combine them into one horrible mess and that'd make even the silly mustache man look like a tree hugging hippie.

Tau are theocratic. The central ruling priesthood class wield absolute power and everything in the state is under their authority above all else. Corporations in the modern sense do not exist (everything is state-run) but the general citizenry wield no power either (there are no direct or indirect elections, referendums, or anything) - every decision made is either made by an Ethereal or by someone who has been appointed by an Ethereal (or someone they have appointed in turn).

Ethereals being essentially supreme monks and worshipping a sacred ideology rather than a conventional deity isn't enough to make them not a theocracy, or so I'd assess. Their role is still the same. They derive their authority from the Greater Good which takes the place of a god, and interpret the "will" of the Greater Good like priests interpret the will of a god.

I don't know how the communism thing started. Probably because they are vaguely East Asian-themed with some collectivist themes, which to the average Warhammer player is probably enough to make them Mao himself reincarnated.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Do we know much of anything about Tau reproduction? We know humans on average only have one kid at a time. But there are many species you get lots of little ones from a single pregnancy. For instance, lovely tiny borky Pupper, and teeny tiny fuzzy Kittens.

If the Tau yield is even two on average? They’re going to have a much faster population increase than us.

We know very little about it, unfortunately. Even the superficial knowledge we have is in things like Phil Kelly's strange Tau novels where Shadowsun faces pressure to be a mother (which feels fundamentally very strange when she is the best general the Empire has and is winning wars for them here and now - any kids she has are not remotely guaranteed to be as good, that's not how genetics tend to work in nature).

 Big Mac wrote:
Logistics, logistics, logistics is the problem. The ideal IG regiment does not get send to their preferred warzone due to logistics; they get send to the closest warzone. War is also unpredictable, so not ideal for any planned action. Guilliman is in charge, and he's supposed to be the best administrator Primarch, he can't do much better in the grand scheme of things, so there is little hope but to keep the status quo.

Guilliman is in a bind. First? He doesn’t have the time to go sort out the logistics from top to bottom. There is a war on you know Second? Thats exasperated by the general state of the Imperium. Ego, vested interest, tradition, ongoing scepticism about Primarchs given the whole Heresy etc.

I’ve no doubt he could get there in the end. But he can’t simply hit the High Lords with the No Stick, or the I’m The Emperor’s Son So You’ll Do As I Bloody Well Say Brick to gain compliance. To do, whilst he would remain loyal to The Emperor, would be to become a Traitor to The Imperium as it stands.

Which is one of the things I like about modern day 40K. This demigod, the literal son of their god and supreme statesman has returned to the fold, full of potential, noble intentions and the intelligence and skills to carry them out. But, by the very nature of the thing he’s charged with saving has seen him hamstrung and hog tied in the political arena.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


Which is one of the things I like about modern day 40K. This demigod, the literal son of their god and supreme statesman has returned to the fold, full of potential, noble intentions and the intelligence and skills to carry them out. But, by the very nature of the thing he’s charged with saving has seen him hamstrung and hog tied in the political arena.

Yeah it truly highlights just how grimdark the setting is and how messed up the Imperium as a whole is. In theory given the hyper religious elements that have grown over 10K years he should have even more power than he did before; and to the masses he likely does But to those in power he's got even less power as he must navigate the twisted mess of politics and inter-group powerplays and all. Otherwise he risks the whole thing turning against him; or even if they don't it might all start to unravel

Guilliman is the world's best console player, hooked up with a controller whose buttons are so worn down the symbols are gone and there's a 70% chance the controller will ignore your input each time because the components are borked.

He's not having a great time.

The best he can do in the short term is preserve what’s currently there as best he can, and hope his derringdo and general inspirational behaviour gains him more and more clout, and so greater earned influence over the High Lords and assorted other powers that be.

As existing High Lords inevitably pop their clogs, he may be able to help ensure the replacements are amenable to his vision of the future. But with Rejuvenaut and that? We’re almost certainly talking centuries if not millennia of careful statesmanship.

And that is just the start of the issue. The system is so dysfunctional, even once he has a council he can control in charge, they can't necessarily enforce their own control very well.

Yes and no.

Again, we’re talking centuries of work to do so. But it can still be done. Efficiency opportunities always exist, especially within the Administratum.

Tithes can be reviewed and adjusted. Staging Posts can be established. Intended Redundancies can be installed.

Essentially, The Imperium is now on the umpteenth generation of Monkies In The Cage. The reason as to why things are done or not done in a certain way has been long forgotten. But, against all odds? It does still work. Kinda. After a fashion. Indeed it’s that very status quo that is Guilliman’s greatest hurdle.

But over a millennia or so? With a mind like Guilliman’s it can be improved. He has the mental capacity and experience to do it.

Would it turn around The Imperium’s fortunes? Well I’m not gonna say yes. But it may let it work better, and let it better tackle its many, many foes.

Improving supply lines and stockpiles (or heck, knowing the Administratum, finding those records of long misplaced worlds and claiming their stockpiles back) could lead to a concerted Ship Building Project. Even if it’s just old but competent and reliable workhorses like the Lunar Class, that could tip the odds against Pirates and larger fleets.

Would Guilliman be able to strong arm Forgeworlds with uniquely powerful and handy weapon patterns into sharing them? Almost certainly not. The Imperium’s authority over Mars and its vassals….well not really there in the way it would need to be for that.

But it could be he stands a chance to persuade such Forgeworlds to focus more on such patterns for export. It may require granting them exclusive mineral and mining rights to newly found or colonised worlds.

So not a DCEU “Holy Reboot Button, Batman” style reset. But a gradual one. Starting with making the most of what you already have, and letting the results of those initial, ideally relatively soft, alterations and changes show positive results, you build up momentum until, over many many regular smelly Hooman lifetimes bit by bit, degree by degree, you’ve revolutionised the whole.

The trick I guess isn’t to challenge anyone’s actual power and standing, but to help guide and change their point of view, possibly with the promise of even greater standing and more cohesive influence.


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The downside to the timescale is it gives all your foes time to adapt to your changing capacity.

For instance, a centralised, well planned and plotted ship building project, intended to, I dunno, double the size of all your existing battlefleets?

If you could do a Cawl and get that done in complete secrecy, then just kick the living snot out of all and sundry? It could be a hammerblow to foes most used to a slow, inefficient Imperium that’s always up for a fight sure, but often has to make do with whatever is to hand,

But to do that on scale to reinforce every fleet? That takes time. Not just to build the ships, but to crew them. You also need to step up production of the associated ammunition and coils and gubbins and humie-know-wots and that.

Spies/Observers will notice a change in your resource gathering patterns. And smart ones (Chaos, Tau, Eldar, Necrons) can almost certainly extrapolate said changes into at least an educated guess as to why they’ve changed, and what you’re most likely up to.

Whether they in turn can do a damned thing about it will of course vary.

And in order to begin implementing such efficiencies? You need time, a rare resource for Imperial Planning (again, outside of Cawl who stands as an interesting example of what the Imperium could achieve if everyone else would just leave off for a bit).

Now. You could keep those ships moving as and when they’re built. A galactic game of find the lady if you will. That might help avoid anyone from making a successful pre-emptive strike before you’ve got whatever critical mass of new ships and crews you reckoned you’d need. But that’s not without risk itself, because The Warp.

But if you could pull it off? It might only be the work of a few centuries. Unleashed right place right time? You could not only catch an enemy with its trousers round its ankles, but with a mole at the counter that’s not taking no for an answer. It could fundamentally change how foes with relatively limited fleet resources go about their own planning. That would include Eldar and Chaos.

If you can force them to engage you in fewer places but in greater numbers? That’s your best playground if you’ve got the rest of your logistical aquatic avians in a row. Even reducing them to more scattered attacks? You inherently reduce their chance of such attacks being a success.

Give him a thousand years and he could of course do it, at least if things don't start collapsing behind him the moment he turns his back.

I don't think he's going to have that kind of time, though. Hell, I don't think he's going to have time to sit around and root out logistics at all. He's spending a lot of time on the front lines lately which is not where the nerve centres are.

He can't replace the rotting timbers because he's busy trying to pump out all the water first.

Orcs are on the rise, constantly seeming to get behind bigger and more brutal and cunning Warbosses

Genestealer and Chaos Cults are rife all over the Imperium; popping up with least warning

Tau are small ,but expanding rapidly. If GW are bold they could even repeat that on another wing of the Imperiums long arm - the Galactic rim is still not theirs

Eldar have started the very first steps on the road to rebuilding - Yinnari is the first hint that new generations of Eldar won't be content to hide and shrink away. Lets not forget there's still significant power within the Eldar and if they were to abandon some of hteir fears of death and automation they could create vast armies and make strikes that would rattle the Imperium anew.

Chaos is on the rise as the Black Crusades are proven to have a singular cause - and they recently shattered Cadia and almost cut the Imperium in half.

Necrons are awakening faster and faster with the Silent King's return they are also becoming more of a united force


And against it all those Tyranid strikes become more bold, more brutal and more surgical each time. Wiping out vast swathes of the Imperums worlds and leaving behind husks. Even worlds that are only part digested would require generations of work to make habitable once more.


The Votann are probably the closest thing to an allied peaceful force that hte Imperium has right now; however even they have reason to target the Imperium. Their super computers are liable to be destroyed by the Imperium/Mechanicus were they ever to be found.

 Haighus wrote:

Which, in terms of current timelines, means they went from being shocked at populations in the double digit billions to having trillions themselves in something like a decade.

It has been nearly 300 years since the Damocles Crusade.

That may be nothing to the IoM, but to the Tau that's a lot time. If the Tau managed to maintain a 2% annual growth rate in that time, their population would multiply by 380.23. They should be literally a hundred fold bigger because unrestricted exponential growth is ridiculous.