corpsesarefun wrote:In 40k nothing is "good" or "bad", instead all the races float around in a blob of dark moral grey.

This applies to tau just as much as all the others, they give you the chance to join them however if you do they sterilise you and treat you like a slave.

Original GW designer's notes wrote:In contrast to other races, we wanted the Tau to be altruistic and idealistic, believing heartily in unification as the way forward. This meant that they would happily incorporate other races into their empire without subjugating them, instead enticing them in with the benefits of mutual protection, trade and technology.

Battlefleet Gothic Rulebook wrote:As the Tau Empire expands out from its homeworld, the Tau inevitably encounter new races previously unknown to them, and to each of these an offer of allegiance is made. There are many aggressive, arrogant and selfish races in the galaxy, however, and even the Tau often find first contact results in nothing more than yet another bloody war. There are other races however, who readily accept the message of the greater good and take up their place in the Tau Empire. Some of these races are small, perhaps located on just a single world, or else primitive with little useful resource to offer the Tau, in which case their accession to the Empire is simply a formality, with the benevolent Tau offering protection to these lesser races while they can expect little other than appreciation and friendship in return.

Other additions to the Empire are advanced in themselves, and the union of two such cultures provides valuable new knowledge, technology and understanding for both parties. Such races, where able, fulfil their debt to the Tau Empire by a series of tithes which suit their own particular abilities. Able craftsmen, for instance, may be called upon to provide manufacturing capacity, while aggressive or warlike races will be obligated to provide troops to the armies of the Tau. There are other races still who do not wish to fully submit to the Empire, but who likewise have no wish for war with the Tau and will instead strike up armistices or treaties of neutrality, opening up lucrative new markets or providing new allegiances for mutual protection. Such races are also likely to hire themselves out as mercenaries to the Tau Empire when the opportunity arises.

Kroothawk wrote:
BTW here is the history of the sterilization rumour nonsense:

There is a non-GW PC game.
For game design reasons there has to be all races on the planet and all ending provided.
We are talking about an ending that is NOT happening in the 40k universe.
There, an Imperial citizen observes that human men and women are held in separate camps. He then speculates why those separated men and women don't have children, the third possible option is sterilization.
So this led to the malignous statement that the Tau Empire regularly sterilizes alien populations. Quite ridiculous if you know the source of this rumour, but people believe it eventually when it is repeated so often.

Tau threads are well known for people discrediting the Tau with statements that can be easily proven wrong. Tau have been called hippies, nazis, communists, liberals, stalinists, just everything the poster hates most. Just because the Tau don't kill everything in sight like all other races.

Kroothawk wrote:Only that the "good guy nonsense" comes directly from the designer's mouth and that spreading deliberately made up false information is not an adequate response to not liking the official concept.

Kroothawk wrote:

If you want to create an alternative setting, where Tau kill everything in sight like everyone else, you are free to do so. But don't pretend that it is the 40k setting.

I am aware that in the Farsight Enclave and in Mont'au times, unnecessary cruelty happens, but we are talking about the current Tau Empire under Ethereal leadership here.