Nerak wrote:
You're the most logical tau player I have ever encountered. In light of this I'm here to bring references.

There have been multiple instances of tau politics clashing and resulting in bloodshed. I do not have a single example of this directly involving the Etherials but, with some evidence provided down below, it really doesn't have to.
In "Thirtenth Penal legions" (-Schaffers last chancers) second book the plot involves a tau renegade commander who adopted his own belief of the greater good that was counter productive to the Tau Empire as a whole.

In "Fire caste":


In "For the Emperor":


In "Xenology" tau are disscected and it's clear that the Etherials extend a phermone like substance that affect all other tau near them, subcounsiously making them agree to their actions.

None of the above scenarios directly involve the etherials but seeing as to how tau are pretty much "programmed" to agree with the Etherials it makes sence that a word or a quite meeting between the ruling caste and the water caste are the offsets of such events. With the phermone system, no matter how schrewed a diplomat the water caste member may be he still must accept the Etherials words as absolute truth.

As to the original question the Tau society is actually deeply splintered with small planets wanting to form their own city states and propaganda being the most powerfull weapon in the taus arsenal (just as "faith" would be in the Imperium). Hence to me the idea of an etherial forming his own judgment of what the greater good truly means sounds like an excellent story and good grounds on which to base your army.

 Dantioch wrote:
But, isn't the idea of chaos pretty heavily suppressed? I mean only farsight is aware of the warp and it is unlikely that the tau have never stumbled upon daemons during their expansions, so there has to be some form of censure. And it is probably quite easy, and hardly questioned, if an army is sent against lets say a necron tomb world, according to the greater good they should come up on top. And if a relay station temporarily crashes and communication to the expedition is lost then who can you blame?

Shutting an army up is probably not very hard in the tau empire. Coming up with a viable story shouldn't be impossible for the etherals, and with their suspected mind control abilities they wouldn't have to worry about suspicions from the other castes.

But then we have ethereals with the expedition, they might be more attached to the soldiers they are overseeing, might not get all the viewpoints put forward in the high council or just not realise that it is a suicide mission, so after the invasion is begun they countermand the order to seize the planet at all cost and instead withdraw.

nomotog wrote:

 Dantioch wrote:
But, isn't the idea of chaos pretty heavily suppressed? I mean only farsight is aware of the warp and it is unlikely that the tau have never stumbled upon daemons during their expansions, so there has to be some form of censure. And it is probably quite easy, and hardly questioned, if an army is sent against lets say a necron tomb world, according to the greater good they should come up on top. And if a relay station temporarily crashes and communication to the expedition is lost then who can you blame?

Shutting an army up is probably not very hard in the tau empire. Coming up with a viable story shouldn't be impossible for the etherals, and with their suspected mind control abilities they wouldn't have to worry about suspicions from the other castes.

But then we have ethereals with the expedition, they might be more attached to the soldiers they are overseeing, might not get all the viewpoints put forward in the high council or just not realise that it is a suicide mission, so after the invasion is begun they countermand the order to seize the planet at all cost and instead withdraw.

There are a few stories about tau and chaos. They tend not to see it as anything special. They will just go ahead and shoot Slaanesh in the head and not give it much worry, so I kind of doubt there would be an effort to suppress chaos knowledge.

If they did want to sprees something, then they would just move the army to a hidden planet and limit contact. Like what they did when developing the gostkeel armor. Actually they could just send the army to the enclaves is they really wanted them to go away.

 Dantioch wrote:

nomotog wrote:

 Dantioch wrote:
But, isn't the idea of chaos pretty heavily suppressed? I mean only farsight is aware of the warp and it is unlikely that the tau have never stumbled upon daemons during their expansions, so there has to be some form of censure. And it is probably quite easy, and hardly questioned, if an army is sent against lets say a necron tomb world, according to the greater good they should come up on top. And if a relay station temporarily crashes and communication to the expedition is lost then who can you blame?

Shutting an army up is probably not very hard in the tau empire. Coming up with a viable story shouldn't be impossible for the etherals, and with their suspected mind control abilities they wouldn't have to worry about suspicions from the other castes.

But then we have ethereals with the expedition, they might be more attached to the soldiers they are overseeing, might not get all the viewpoints put forward in the high council or just not realise that it is a suicide mission, so after the invasion is begun they countermand the order to seize the planet at all cost and instead withdraw.

There are a few stories about tau and chaos. They tend not to see it as anything special. They will just go ahead and shoot Slaanesh in the head and not give it much worry, so I kind of doubt there would be an effort to suppress chaos knowledge.

If they did want to sprees something, then they would just move the army to a hidden planet and limit contact. Like what they did when developing the gostkeel armor. Actually they could just send the army to the enclaves is they really wanted them to go away.

But isn't that a sign of a cover-up that they see daemons as just another opponent, if they were aware of the threat that chaos possesses I find it hard to believe that they would just try shooting slaanesh in his/her/it private parts. Tau is certainly an army that documents any and all encounters both with friends and hostiles so when fighting an army that pretty obviously breaks the laws of physics it is bound to raise questions. But there seems to be virtually no knowledge of this, and as you stated they seem to be treated as just another xenos, so there has to be at least some form of cover up or they should find knowledge of chaos in their archives.

nomotog wrote:

 Dantioch wrote:

nomotog wrote:

 Dantioch wrote:
But, isn't the idea of chaos pretty heavily suppressed? I mean only farsight is aware of the warp and it is unlikely that the tau have never stumbled upon daemons during their expansions, so there has to be some form of censure. And it is probably quite easy, and hardly questioned, if an army is sent against lets say a necron tomb world, according to the greater good they should come up on top. And if a relay station temporarily crashes and communication to the expedition is lost then who can you blame?

Shutting an army up is probably not very hard in the tau empire. Coming up with a viable story shouldn't be impossible for the etherals, and with their suspected mind control abilities they wouldn't have to worry about suspicions from the other castes.

But then we have ethereals with the expedition, they might be more attached to the soldiers they are overseeing, might not get all the viewpoints put forward in the high council or just not realise that it is a suicide mission, so after the invasion is begun they countermand the order to seize the planet at all cost and instead withdraw.

There are a few stories about tau and chaos. They tend not to see it as anything special. They will just go ahead and shoot Slaanesh in the head and not give it much worry, so I kind of doubt there would be an effort to suppress chaos knowledge.

If they did want to sprees something, then they would just move the army to a hidden planet and limit contact. Like what they did when developing the gostkeel armor. Actually they could just send the army to the enclaves is they really wanted them to go away.

But isn't that a sign of a cover-up that they see daemons as just another opponent, if they were aware of the threat that chaos possesses I find it hard to believe that they would just try shooting slaanesh in his/her/it private parts. Tau is certainly an army that documents any and all encounters both with friends and hostiles so when fighting an army that pretty obviously breaks the laws of physics it is bound to raise questions. But there seems to be virtually no knowledge of this, and as you stated they seem to be treated as just another xenos, so there has to be at least some form of cover up or they should find knowledge of chaos in their archives.

I think it's more the tau just being too reasonable to exist in 40k. It's kind of a common trope in 40k that the tau just don't get it. They throw parties for necrons, trade with dark eldar, or report that they have killed Slaanesh. When the tau see something that another fraction would describe as demon influence they might describe it as a form of neuroses.

 Dantioch wrote:

Sort of going of point, but I like how varied the tau background actually is. There is the comical viewpoint such as the incidents listed by you where the tau are overly friendly and blue eyed. But there is also the dark and conspiratory background with deep rooted conspiracies, heavy use of propaganda and gunpoint conversion/diplomacy. It gives fans and foes of the greater good a large choice for how to interprate the faction and make them what they want to be, something that isn't as easy with the tyranids or eldar who are quite fixed.

I personally like the tau as a more sinister faction, not in the obviously kafkaesque or brutal way that the imperium treats its citizens/slaves, but rather in a sortof illuminati way of manipulating things for what is perhaps the better but could be for something much more malign.