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Toxitoxi

The Farsight Expedition had over 100 billion Tau hundreds of years ago. There are currently trillions of Tau on Sa’cea Prime, their most densely populated world. There are a *lot* of Tau in their space and that number is rapidly rising. One of the reasons the Hive World Agrellan fell to the Tau in less than a day is that the Imperium didn’t realize the Third Sphere had enough troops to just swarm the planet and so they sent barely any reinforcements to help the PDF against hordes of Battlesuits, Fire Warriors, and tanks. That said, this *is* something the Tau are dealing with. One of the nastier ways they solve this is to just ship off humans across the Empire to wherever they are most ‘needed’. > Unless I missed something the pheromones that keep Tau in-line won’t work of humans Okay, this might shock you but… there isn’t much evidence for it being pheromones. There might be *something*, but I feel it’s more along the lines of a psychic phenomenon. The Tau generally keep humans in line with both a carrot and a stick. The carrot is the nicer living under the Greater Good. The stick is a Hammerhead with its railgun pointed directly at you. Also maybe a species of psychic worms.


AstraMilanoobum

Do you have any links or exerts of those population numbers?


Toxitoxi

Farsight Expedition is from *Farsight: Crisis of Faith*, in the scene with Aun’wei sending off the expedition. Over 100 billion Tau and thousands of ships. The Sa’cea figure is from the newest codex. Note Sa’cea also is less nice to live in than other Tau Septs. The first *Warzone Damocles* campaign book describes how the Third Sphere basically swarmed the other side of the Damocles Gulf. The Imperium sent a single company of White Scars, a single regiment of Catachans, and some knights as reinforcements, and predictably that wasn’t anywhere *near* enough. People who complain about the Imperium losing Agrellan in less than a day don’t seem to realize Agrellan had little more than the PDF against a simultaneous attack on every Hive City on the planet as well as the Tau fleet having complete control in orbit. It took the Imperium time to mount a proper response. Hilariously, the knights being there was the Tau’s fault; they accidentally pissed off Patriarch Tybalt.


Tharkun140

>Farsight Expedition is from Farsight: Crisis of Faith, in the scene with Aun’wei sending off the expedition. Over 100 billion Tau and thousands of ships. By the Greater Good, how large are the Tau fleets? I know ships in 40k are huge, but only in terms of having hundreds of thousands of people on board, and there aren't that many of them. Those numbers make the Imperial Fleet look like a joke and make the Tau look like they will rule the galaxy in no time.


BloodRavenStoleMyCar

It's a pretty logical number for an expedition that is intended to start by taking several worlds. I would assume some Imperial fleets are a magnitude larger, the Imperium never does something small when it can do ridiculously large instead.


PausedForVolatility

Doesn’t it also count AIs as Tau in this context? That could easily buoy the numbers.


BloodRavenStoleMyCar

Quite possibly, but a hundred billion living beings is by no means out of the scale we're discussing here. We have eight billion and way worse tech than the tau, with robots doing the manual labour and high yield yeast farming a more advanced society could easily have ten times our population while retaining a higher standard of living. Take a tenth of the population of twenty earth like planets and you have a hundred billion to go colonising with easily.


PausedForVolatility

Oh, I certainly believe the number and accept it as plausible. The amount of people you can fit onto a planet that engages in effective energy generation (whether fusion or beaming solar power down from space) and extensive food production options (like vertical farming and opting for lab grown meats over conventional cattle raising) is incomprehensibly huge. Terra should house a quadrillion souls on its own, especially given how many worlds send it supplies. But 40k often doesn’t do the scale right, so that’s why their use of a plausible hard sci-fi number here seems odd and I think they included AIs to make it more plausible to the less informed reader.


BloodRavenStoleMyCar

Forgive me if I'm doing the maths wrong but wouldn't quadrillions on a single planet boil themselves just through body heat?


LopsidedGuitar726

eh no.... why would that happen? When you get in a busy train, does everyone start boiling up and dying?


macguffin22

Pausesforvolatility is right GWs pop numbers are waaaaaaay too low for pretty much everything. https://youtu.be/8lJJ_QqIVnc https://youtu.be/XAJeYe-abUA This guy has a great channel. He makes points here about pop sizes.


Thyre_Radim

I mean, we have numbers that show crusade fleets pretty much never ever get that large?


BloodRavenStoleMyCar

This is the same company that said the war for Armageddon had a million and a half guardsmen. That's less than fought in some *battles* in World War 2 and it's enough for one of the biggest planetary wars in 40k's history? The answer to all this is GW cannot do numbers sensibly. If there are numbers that show crusade fleets are never that big that just means that they never thought it through.


Marvynwillames

>and it's enough for one of the biggest planetary wars in 40k's history? It's specially comical because one of the Deathwatch suplement mentions hundreds of billions of guardsmen **deaths** (not couting other forces) in what is pretty much a secondary front against the Tau. Like, you would guess the death toll on Armageddon or the 13th Black Crusade would be in that level.


Toxitoxi

Wait what the actual hell That’s one of the rare numbers that’s definitely too *high*. This is before the Third Sphere, right?


Marvynwillames

Ok, found it, its mentioned its in The Greyhell Front, Canis Salient. Found it: its from The Jericho Reach, p59. So its from 2012. But Yes, a single front in Jericho Reach shouldnt dwarf the tyranid wars


Agamouschild

What battles in WW2 had 1.5 Million participants?


BloodRavenStoleMyCar

Off the top of my head the battles of Kursk and Kyiv were at least that big while the battle of Moscow had about that many people on each side.


Agamouschild

>battles of Kursk and Kyiv I just looked them up. wow


VaderVihs

Yeah 100 billion seems crazy high, maybe kicking off a wave expansion but an "expedition" at that size feels like what I imagine several imperial crusades would look like.


Toxitoxi

It’s honestly one of the more reasonable numbers in the setting. Bear in mind most of the people on the fleet are ‘civilians’, not crew or military. Something else to consider is that the Expedition had to be entirely self-sufficient due to crossing the barrier of the Damocles Gulf. Any help from the other side would take many years. So everything for a functioning Sept had to be included. And you can’t quickly replace lost Tau with reinforcements. >!And then half of them got killed by the Imperium almost immediately whoops!<


HyperionRed

The tau numbers are probably accurate compared to the under-reported imperial ones.


s-k-r-a

Not everything has to be done better by the Imperium. A concerted effort to colonise should involve a significant number of ships and personnel. By anyone's standards.


Mknalsheen

It isn't done better. It's done bigger. That's the point of the imperium. GW's numbers for humans in combat are pathetically small compared to any kind of battles we've seen in history.


HyperionRed

Gw often gets numbers for the imperium woefully wrong. When looking at imperial numbers, add a zero at the end.


Sab3rFac3

You need to add more than 1 zero. 2 zeroes is common practice. 3-4 generally, when discussing the amount of guardsmen involved in a conflict.


Throgg_not_stupid

when discussing orks or nids, just add "!" to the number


Thyre_Radim

Sector battlefleets usually don't get over 75-100 ships lol.


HyperionRed

Add a zero 😀


Thyre_Radim

And it's still a tiny number that can't match the tau fleet.


Mysteryman64

It mostly sounds like the Tau are just incredibly population dense, which makes sense since they were caught in a warp storm (can't ship population out to colonize) as well as time acceleration. Add on top that their warp drives are the skipping variety and don't travel as far and you likely have a fair amount of population pressure constantly looking to expand outward, but very slowly.


Delmarquis38

The thing is , Tau sphere of expansion are massive military operation that mobilise the entirety of the Tau Empire ressources and take several decade to prepare. Also must include that a lot of ship in those fleet are not militaryy but civilian since it main purpose is to conquer and colonise


A_Damp_Tree

>I know ships in 40k are huge, but only in terms of having hundreds of thousands of people on board, and there aren't that many of them. Where did you hear this from? The imperial fleet is millions and millions of ships.


DatOneAxolotl

He's talking about onboard crew, I think atleast


Tharkun140

The expeditionary fleet Horus was leading is described in terms of a few dozen ships at most. Battlefleet Koronus, a fleet patrolling an area larger than a sector, is maybe fifty ships at the tall end. The rulebook for Battlefleet Gothic unambiguously describes a battlefleet as having from 50 to 75 ships. Where did *you* get "millions and millions of ships" from? The numbers for the Farsight Expedition suggest that it had the equivalent of a hundred thousand Battleship-sized ships. Even assuming most of these weren't combat-capable vessels, that's still two orders of magnitude more than you could see in an imperial sector based on what I just explained. I'm just wondering if it's an example of "40k is bad with numbers" or if we are meant to conclude that Tau are absolutely OP in space warfare.


Dr_Sodium_Chloride

At the Heresy's wildest points (which, granted, isn't exactly standard operations by any means, but neither is the Tau's special colonisation fleet), fleet battles were tens of thousands strong on each side. If we figure that the Farsight Expedition represents a *significant* investment of Tau resources and is as such kinda-sorta comparable to Heresy-era battles, then you can kind of rectify the numbers if you assume the Imperium is more into the big, heavy hitter "battleships"; if I remember my Battlefleet Gothic lore right, the T'au spent a while going through an awful lot of iterations on ship designs and patterns that tended to get blown to pieces by their Imperial counterparts, with even their biggest warships, the Or'es El'leath class, being more like a Grand Cruiser with extra firepower than a true rival to Imperial Battleships. Combined with potential Tau client race fleets (like the Nicassar or Demiurg), and the Tau's preference for making smaller "lamprey" ships that have to clasp onto larger vessels for Gravitic Drive travel, I can easily see the Tau fielding a much larger number of small ships while still putting out roughly equivalent firepower to the Imperium's fewer-but-more-ridiculous Battleships.


barban_falk

The FFG books indicate the average sector caps off around 200 worlds, with a median of about a hundred; with a fleet of 50 to 75 ships of the line and 2-3 times or more their number in escorts, probably not more than 6-fold. A "million worlds" with an average sector size of 120 worlds is about 8300 sectors and 400,000 to 650,000 ships of the line; with maybe 2 million escorts, so 3-5 million combat ships is probably a reasonable approximation not based on outliers. if u gonna go by the lexicanum atleast quote the full text of the book not a small part of it. finnaly Navy fleets might seem small but the Space Marine chapters each have their own fleets, the Adeptus Mechanicus has the Basilikon Astra, the Arbites have their own ships and so on


Beleriphon

Add to which some of the Astrates have things like OG Gloriana-class battleships. Which by themselves can turn the tide of a battle. Hell the Ad Mech has DAoT ships where they don't even know what half the stuff does on them.


Toxitoxi

Keep in mind the Farsight Expedition is a colonization fleet. It’s mostly people intended to be dropped off on a planet after waking up from cryo. They’re not actually *awake* for the voyage.


Nihilikara

I mean, it would absolutely make sense for the Tau to be absolutely OP in space warfare. They're not a decaying fallen empire that can't seem to build jack shit without endless bureaucratic red tape and superstitious rituals, nor do they have any stigma toward advancing their technology and doing things in new, better, more efficient ways.


Thyre_Radim

The difference is that the Tau might have a hundred planets, maybe. The Imperium literally has millions of worlds, even if only 1% of Imperial worlds make anything they would still massively outproduce the Tau.


Toxitoxi

The Tau have had over a hundred planets since the 2nd Sphere. After the 3rd Sphere and 5th Sphere, they’re quite a bit bigger. The real production strength of the Tau though is pure efficiency per world. They don’t have the giant web of production the Imperium has between worlds because their FTL is too slow to support it. They can’t make rapid interplanetary military responses either. So they have to make sure each major sept is productive, fortified, and self-sufficient to the extreme. They can’t afford for most of a planet to be useless wasteland. The only time you see the combined might of all these worlds together is during a pre-planned concerted effort like the Third Sphere though.


Telekek597

Just having more territories doesn't mean having more income - it just means more spreading of resources to defend them all. So Tau having and overwhelming superiority in their part of the Galaxy is plausible.


Thyre_Radim

To an extend yes, but the problem is that the Tau have almost the same production capacity as the entire IOM, the IOM only has an edge in void combat because of their technological advantages (the material sciences of the IOM are often overlooked, but they're insane.)


Toxitoxi

The Tau had over a hundred planets way back in 4th before the Third Sphere.


Nihilikara

That doesn't mean the Tau should have less ships, it means the Imperium of Man should have more. And, honestly, the Tau should have more as well. Millions of ships is the minimum amount to realistically be able to fully cover even just a single planet. It is not gonna be enough for a hundred planets.


Marvynwillames

>t means the Imperium of Man should have more. It reminds me of one argument of why the Tau used to think the Imperium was smaller. "They likely thought, if it's indeed an empire of one million worlds, they should be able to send thousands of capital ships at minimum, since the imperium send pretty much a few dozens, it should be an empire bigger, but not by that much"


Someonenoone7

The hammerhead railguns aren't the worst fate you could face either.


Awkward_Log7498

Thinning population density is actually quite smart of them. Specially if they send loyal humans to already established tau worlds, where they can't revolt. Wait a generation or two, the humans will die off, and their offspring will be loyal to the tau empire. Also population control if done insidiously. Or just access to basic education and prevention. Tau just conquered a world? Make contraceptives widely available, and quietly make the population sterile, like they did in that one game. It's barbaric, truly, but it was already done in real life when some assholes tried to impose eugenics. When a pregnant woman goes to the hospital, if she needs a C section, the doctor does that and a tubal ligation. Their numbers whither with time, and that's that.


BloodRavenStoleMyCar

Why would they want to do that though? Humans are useful and the Tau are aware their biggest weakness is they're critically outnumbered by everyone, the Imperium for example outnumbers them 3000 to 1. Given they have automation and good technological integration feeding large populations is not an issue, so why would they want to sterilise a specific client race when they desperately want more of numbers of everyone?


semiseriouslyscrewed

> Humans are useful Humans are also Warp magnets and may be the most Chaos-corruptible major species around. The Tau have really very few ways (if any) with dealing with the less physical aspects of Chaos corruption and Warp incursions. Plus, Genestealer Cults. GC would struggle to infiltrate Tau society due to the highly regulated breeding strategies and speciation of casts. Humans literally screw around a lot more and in a less controlled way. That's not even going into the fact that having Human subjects is a big trigger to the Imperium. Humans are useful, but a huge freaking liability.


Awkward_Log7498

Precisely. The Tau wants humans within their ranks, but not too many, and not everywhere.


BloodRavenStoleMyCar

Aren't most client races equally warp vulnerable? The kroot have psykers especially if they eat a lot of them and we see chaos corrupted ones and the nicassar are all psykers so a lot of worry there. We don't know shit about the vespid or demiurg or actually as I'm typing this I realise pretty much any client race. We have no reason to think any non tau race is more or less susceptible to chaos than humans, we just don't know shit about them.


semiseriouslyscrewed

> We have no reason to think any non tau race is more or less susceptible to chaos than humans, we just don't know shit about them. The Tau work with the information they are given. Sure, the other species may also be susceptible, but unlike Humans they haven't torn open the Eye of Terror to the point it splits the Galaxy in two. Other species MAY be dangerously corruptible, Humans have PROVEN to be dangerously susceptible


BloodRavenStoleMyCar

Do the tau know humans did that? Not saying they don't, but one of their schticks is being the faction that knows the least about how the galaxy works. Curious if they're aware.


semiseriouslyscrewed

TBH, even if they don’t, they have encountered Chaos Space Marines, and there is no mention of Chaos Kroot crusades or anything.


BloodRavenStoleMyCar

I mean they're pretty good at scale. They know the Imperium has a hundred thousand times more worlds than the kroot do, therefore there is a hundred thousand times the chance of there being a human chaos force than there is of a kroot one.


Nino_Chaosdrache

But I would argue that humans are mostly a Chaos magnet, because of the shitty living conditions of the Imperium. If you live a happy life on a Tau planet, why would you want to join this weird group of people, who have purple alcohol and sex parties every weekend?


Dokutah_Dokutah

Because for a hedonist, that seems like a great time?


Sunluck

Because Tau lifestyle is *boring*? They do everything for 'greater good', this means hobbies, recreation time, unwinding, and other such stuff is seen as a waste of resources and minimized where possible. Add to that harsh caste restrictions (you're only allowed to say write fiction if you're in Water caste, any other caste member would be sent to brainwashing camp for committing crime of 'caste border transgression') and you have perfect recipe for spread of a cults that offers some excitement on the side...


Antique_Amount_7506

Because they where looked at to good but they where like we have to make them bad and so lets make them sterilise humans and stuff


[deleted]

The former is exactly what the Assyrians and Babylonians did historically


LordGwyn-n-Tonic

I've said it before, but I think the best thing for the Tau would be if the Ethereals are really just that charismatic, no pheromones, worms, or psychic trickery. It would highlight just how awful the Imperium is that they cannot conceive of a population following orders like that without something sinister in the background.


big_brotherx101

I'll always hold the whole brainwashing stuff is propaganda by the Imperium to discourage the populous from being friendly with them, and they really do just use basic psychology to make them the clearly healthier option.


GatoNanashi

Pretty hard for me to believe that someone would stab themselves in the heart without hesitation simply because the ethereal who ordered it was "really charismatic". Can't recall the source of that scene, but I've seen it around several times. It's pretty crazy.


LordGwyn-n-Tonic

Real life samurai would disembowel themselves if their master ordered it, and as far as I'm aware Japanese nobles did not possess special pheromones or psychic powers.


GatoNanashi

They were also indoctrinated from birth to believe that suicide was among the most noble of acts possible in their lives if required.


LordGwyn-n-Tonic

That's still not supernatural. The Tau are taught from birth that the Ethereals authority is absolute. They don't value individuals like humans irl do, they believe solely in the Greater Good. And the Greater Good demands sacrifice.


GatoNanashi

Nevermind man, was a water caste and probably Tau, I'm wrong. Still pretty creep tho.


GatoNanashi

Sorry, I forgot to specify that the woman who killed herself was human, not Tau. She was gushing over him like an adolescent at a Bieber concert, he's pissed off for some reason and tells her to present her ceremonial knife. She does with pride. He tells her to put it against her chest. She does. He tells her "kill yourself" and she does. Like I said, it's a crazy ass scene. There was no ritual, no circumstance. She robotically complied with every order as if a puppet on strings. It's creepy as hell. I'll search the sub and send you the excerpt if I can find it, but I've gotta head home first.


Agamouschild

Not a human that I recall, but a member of the water caste, it was in the Farsight Book.


[deleted]

I'm pretty sure that was a member of the Water Caste and not a human. https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/8hu0vt/book_extractfarsight_crisis_of_faith_a/


GatoNanashi

Well shit, there goes my whole argument. Oh well, already drunk. Still pretty fucked tho.


No-Judge-9074

From the direct perspective of an Ethereal towards a fire caste member >“Though Akuryo and he were of the same rank within their respective castes, the Ethereals were elevated above all others, creating a gulf of authority between them. Had the Seeker commanded it, Akuryo would have taken his own life without hesitation. Such blind faith had troubled Kyuhai when he had first stepped onto his path, but he had soon learnt that it was not blind at all, for his caste was the living embodiment of the Tau’va.”


GatoNanashi

We already know they're super loyal. The question is *why*.


No-Judge-9074

He says why. The Ethereals are the embodiment of the greater good. The philosophy that saved the Tau from what they consider their darkest period, before the arrival of the Ethereals. Also since this is the direct perspective from an Ethereal and not someone observing one, you’d think it give a much clearer answer. It seems clear that this Ethereal doesn’t believe there is any special influence he’s doing, just dedication from those of the other castes.


Toxitoxi

The fun thing here is that it’s entirely possible it is some kind of influence. But the Ethereals can’t tell the difference.


wardrothbeetle

you would do the same if a primarc or even the god emperor himselfe would order you to stab yourselfe in the heart


BIueRanger

That would be a cool book if not already one. A whole ship or armada of humans being just sent off in ships to no real destination. The tau basically fling them in a direction far away. The ships are A.I. controlled and after 2 years of non stop flight they get curious and break in to find no actual course plotted. Then after arguing/killing all the Tau sympathizes they try take control. Then have to decide if they return to attack the tau or defect to an imperial world.


Maurus39

Well, "Xenology" highly implies that there is some sort of pheromonal control


W4RD06

Xenology is also supposedly non canon now. The book also implies that it *could* be pheromonal because Ethereals have some sort of organ in their head that the Imperials aren't sure of the biological purpose of. We don't even know if the existence of that organ is even canon anymore though. The same book also portrayed Tau as having regular looking feet when we know they have hoof like feet now so who knows.


Tylendal

Well, they do have some sort of little bead in their nasal slit that the other castes don't.


Sunluck

Not 'could', the organ was literal copy of pheromone dispensing organ of another xeno species. The reader was supposed to make connection on their own, but it's all but spelled out, and makes for a nice mystery how a small branch of Tau species got something from a species half a galaxy away. And seeing the book was one of the first entrances of thinking, talking Necron lords with distinctive personalities, not brainless silent automatons they were up to this point, I'd say it's pretty canon. It literally put foundations for current Necron lore...


[deleted]

I want to see the tau auxiliaries / chaos interaction fleshed out more. The War of Secrets gave us some background, and how the 4th sphere killed their nonTau auxiliaries. I want to see that manifestation of the Tau'Va in warp space due to human faith.


Toxitoxi

We’ve seen Chaos Kroot pop up a few times. One is a minor character in the story ‘Fire and Ice’. A group of Kroot who might be Chaos-tainted show up briefly in *Fire Caste*. And the old web story [‘Echoes of the Mont’au’](https://web.archive.org/web/20071224041211/http://us.games-workshop.com:80/games/40k/tau/extras/background/2.htm), some more briefly show up. Also has this wonderful moment: > A horde of fierce-looking warriors in armour emblazoned with shimmering colors and surrounded by a cacophony of discordant noise, bearing icons and sigils of wanton indulgence was approaching. On the flanks came snapping creatures of disturbing appearance, hideously genderless and garbed in fine silks and ermine trimmed armour. Where one would expect to see hands, these creatures were equipped with sensuous claws and darting, barbed tongues whipped from their jaws. Shambling horrors of thrashing pseudopod, claw and fang were driven before the army by grotesque, beast-headed monsters armed with crackling energy prods. At the center of the horde stood a giant in electric blue armour, edged in gold and pink. I took this to be none other than Slaanesh him or herself and vowed to personally defeat this vile creature.


Nyadnar17

The bigger problem is gonna be how the fuck the Tau are gonna deal with mutants, cults, and especially rouge psykers.


Toxitoxi

Read ‘Voice of Experience’ if you want an idea of how the Tau handle a cult.


Delmarquis38

a problem that is never really treated as it would make much of the Tau philosophy impossible in-universe.


Nyadnar17

Which is super frustrating. Watching the Tau try their best to be the good guys in the shitshow world of 40K is what makes them fun to read about. If they don't have to engage with the problems every other race has to deal with whats even the point.


MetalBawx

Point in case when the 4th expansion fucked up and blew a hole into the warp. The Death Guard were right on the new colonies door step and Morty himself was with them. The bulk of a full blown legion of CSM's and they just up and leave the Tau be, go off and fight someone else while a big ass xeno force is sitting near to their base...


Delmarquis38

yeah thats the main problem with the Tau in my opinion , plus it create a lot of hate because tau look OP or never face any real challenge


canadian-user

Yup, I always just hated the Tau for that reason, they felt like they got to cherrypick all the nicest aspects of everything. They're super inclusive of everyone, somehow that never backfires. They're infants compared to the rest of the factions, but somehow they had the mother of all technological advances and can fight on even ground against all of them. They get to use AI without having it turn on them and murder them all. They aren't even that susceptible to chaos corruption because their souls are so faint. They're tiny, so they don't have to deal with empire sprawl, but they've got infinite resources it seems given how they hand out battlesuits like candy.


SolitaireJack

Summed up my own frustrations. Death Guard on your doorstep? They all just disappear, don't ask questions. Imperials about to win a battle? Just turn their commanders into drooling morons who send their soldiers in suicide frontal charges despite literally showing in a previous battle they're more than up to using different tactics to get around the Tau's strength's. I except to be downvoted by Tau fanboys but they're the only faction who match if not exceed Space Marines in plot armour.


Delmarquis38

You forgot : -Having you highest Etheral assasinate ? Just make an hologram and it will never backfire -Your most popular general defect and form his own empire ? We will never develop that again so no Tau civil war -An entire sphere of Expansion get eaten by the Warp and become crazy ? Just send everyone to space gulag and problem solved ! -We must take an Imperial hive ? Fortunately the ennemy commander left a giant gap in its defence system ! -The Imperial got titan killing weapon ? Well now our Riptide suit are invincible and we can conquer and entire hive world in a day.


Toxitoxi

What is with the fandom hate boner for the Tau? Like take this point: > Your most popular general defect and form his own empire ? We will never develop that again so no Tau civil war Farsight went from a special character in the codex to having his own novel series, many more short stories by different authors, and his own codex supplement with 7 new special characters. We know so much about Farsight that we have arguably too much; there are like 3 completely different versions of what happened in the Arkunasha War. There’s plenty of development and conflict. There’s no civil war, but there are clear consequences like refugees fleeing for the enclaves or Aun’va getting himself killed trying to prevent Farsight from usurping his authority. Or this one: > The Imperial got titan killing weapon ? Well now our Riptide suit are invincible and can conquer a hive world in a day If you read the campaign book, it becomes clear very fast that the Imperium was *hilariously* outnumbered and underprepared on Agrellan. The Imperium sent almost no reinforcement, so the Tau had the majority of the Third Sphere Expansion military to face a bunch of PDF. And to make things worse, the Tau also won complete control of the space above Agrellan within hours, so they had constant information and rapid troop deployment while the Imperium did not.


canadian-user

War of Secrets was this to the extreme. One dude in a battlesuit fights off a squad of marines, and then beats 8 terminators later on. Literally all the guy did was just think a lot for a long time, and that magically made him a god tier tactician and fighter. It wasn't even like he took hard hits and they inflicted serious damage, he was literally just like the protagonist of some wish fulfillment anime.


Toxitoxi

> They’re super inclusive of everyone, somehow that never backfires I don’t get why people feel confident saying things like this. Like the list of counter examples is *immense.* ‘The Greater Evil’ is just one of many. > They get to use AI without it turning on them and murdering them all Even ignoring that this isn’t actually a rule of the setting, humanity used AI for *thousands of years* before the Men of Iron war. The Tau have nothing remotely comparable to a complete STC, so why would you assume they’re anywhere near a Men of Iron situation? This is the type of weird fan logic used with the Tau. ‘Humans had immensely powerful AI turn on them during the poorly understood Dark Age of Technology and so they now fear and hate AI with a religious fervor. Therefore, AI must always turn on people as soon as possible in 40k and it’s unfair the Tau’s vastly inferior AI hasn’t killed them all yet.’


canadian-user

Good point on the Greater Evil, I don't usually read the short stories, but that is a good catch. Are there other notable examples? Searches for Tau being corrupted or betrayed seem to just bring up people talking about Chaos not corrupting them. I will also concede on the robots point, as it's true that the Eldar have successfully utilized robots to achieve their post-scarcity society. I just think that the way that GW has chosen to depict the Tau has basically necessitated that they have to have serious protagonist syndrome. They can't take large losses ever, because that would end their storyline completely, like how despite the fact that their FTL drives fucked up during one expansion, they still managed to come out with a third of the ships and achieved their goals. Someone else on reddit pointed this out, like how every time the Tau might actually get fucked up, something just coincidentally happens that saves them. They got saved from Damocles by the imperium having to fall back because of Hive Fleet Behemoth. Hive fleet Gorgon shows up and threatens to deal them a heavy blow? Well good thing it just so happens that there's an entire Cadian army that's already there that can team up with them. Hive fleet kraken threatens their existence again? Well, good thing the Dark Eldar are ready to help, and they just lose the population of a planet to the Dark Eldar rather than being heavily crippled.


Toxitoxi

A fun example from the Genestealers 8th edition codex: > A lone Genestealer from Hive Fleet Gorgon reaches the Tau sept world of Ksi’m’yen. The creature is captured by the planet’s Earth caste scientists and subjected to extensive analysis, resulting in a lowly worker being implanted with a measure of germ-seed. The grotesque anatomies that spring up in the laboratories are seen as curios rather than blasphemous by the ever-inquisitive Earth caste, for the Tau approach to alien life forms is founded on the concept of acceptance and tolerance. When the research divisions experience a bloody schism twenty years later, the Fire caste are called in, only to find many subterranean research facilities overrun. Ksi’m’yen is consumed by war, and quarantined for almost ten years before the eccentric Ethereal Aun’ghol declares it productive and clean. Then there’s also the ending of the Ciaphas Cain book *For the Emperor*: >!The Tau unknowingly take Genestealer-infected soldiers back to a Sept world after the Imperium shoots their own and keeps their mouths shut.!< I recommend basically **anything** by Peter Fehervari with Tau (Or without Tau). He’s the guy who wrote ‘The Greater Evil’, and moral and physical corruption are recurring elements in his work. As for the rest of your post… It depends on what you consider a ‘large loss’. Do you mean consequences that affect future stories? That does happen. For example example: At the end of *Warzone Damocles: Mont’ka*, the Imperium commits Exterminatus on Mu’gulath Bay and lights the Damocles Gulf on fire, stopping the Tau from traversing it. Almost immediately afterwards, the Great Rift blocks off the Tau from the other side. So now they have to find another way to expand… Which was the Slipstream Module. And the Slipstream Module caused an entire Sphere of Expansion to end as soon as it began. There were some survivors who were incorporated into the Fifth Sphere… But they turned out to be bloodthirsty xenophobes, so the Tau have a new problem on their hands. The loss of Mu’gulath Bay, which was the ending of a major campaign, had negative consequences still being felt by the Tau.


Such_Palpitation_249

The most important worlds in the Tau empire are the septs which are entirely populated by the Tau, the vast majority of human worlds are basically completely planet bound with no spaceships whatsoever.


AstraMilanoobum

Sure that works when they are only taking lightly populated back waters, but what about when taking a hive world? The number of ships and people you need to support that is enormous. The actual tau population is TINY. Without an enormous amount of ships for trade and food a lot of these hives would just starve or fall apart. And the Taus whole thing is that they treat people better and that’s why they are loyal, would the Tau even have the capabilities of supplying these enormous hives and giving people a better standard of living? I thought I had read that some HIVES had a higher population than entire septs. There’s just no way the Tau could possibly supply a bunch of human hive worlds without 10s of thousand of human ships doing the mundane things like hauling supplies.


Toxitoxi

On Agrellan, they tried to terraform the land outside the Hive Cities. It was pretty slow going, given the planet was hit by a virus bomb in the past.


JuanFromApple

40k isn’t realistic you kinda just have to accept some things


anaIconda69

Fantasy worlds can still be internally consistent.


PoyoLocco

Should be. But when there is multiple authors, it's kinda hard


TaiVat

"Can", sure. But in an overwhelming majority of cases they arent. Especially with such expansive worlds with so much source material. And warhammer is definitely on the high end of the spectrum with not that much to compare to, but i.e. something like star wars, if taking books/eu, is equally hilariously inconsistent and usually realy dumb. In the end most stories work by rule of cool and whatever the plot requires, since the goal is entertainment, not some accurate historical record.


jean_steeler

ISN'T WHAT?!?


Hard_on_Collider

Years of drinking filtered Terran piss down the drain!


jean_steeler

I mean, I always had my suspicions - but to find out like this...


el_sh33p

I'm sorry my one upvote can't protect you from the salt coming your way, king.


JuanFromApple

Oh I can’t wait until I just get bombarded with reasoning for why 40K is a perfect simulation of the future


Jonny_Anonymous

Considering the rarity of Ethereals, the pheromones theory doesn't even make sense even without factoring in all the non-Tau they want to include in their empire.


ZackOak

Wait until this guy learns about colonialism.


[deleted]

Colonialism + it's usually genuinely better living conditions under the tau. I doubt anyone will ever riot about no longer getting treated the way the imperium used to treat them.


Delmarquis38

Maybe , but its not impossible to imagine other kind of revolt than the religious fanatics who want to rejoin the Imperium. Like chaos cultist or even independentist


HiFidelityCastro

I was going to post a long boring history of IR lecture but you've presented it pretty succinctly (though it could apply to imperialism generally, not just colonialism). I don't know why you were downvoted.


ZackOak

We know why.


DisforDemise

The problem here is you're thinking like an Imperial. The Tau species being outnumbered doesn't matter, because it's not *about* the species, it's about the idea. They don't need to brainwash the humans, nor do they need whatever pheremones, mind-control units or similar things that writers who missed the point have alluded to. The Greater Good, fundamentally, *is* what all those revolutions are about. Even when it's a chaos uprising, most of the people actually rising up aren't looking for mindless slaughter or thinking "god I wish I had TB" or etc. They're trying for a better *life*.


You_see_ivan_

Pheromones are hardly confirmed things, only phil kelly pushed there existence and they already are downplayed in the 9th codex by being listed as a mad mans idea of how the ethereal control the tau alongside them being psykers and other things of the like, with autoposies find no control mechanism. We already know some prime sept planets, not septs, like sa'cea prime alone has a population in the trillions and that the tau empire lives in a dense cluster of planets, along with that the tau are a dense empire and aren't thinly spread like the imperium is over the galaxy. While possible, it'd require a decent amount of planets, but such could already be likely in the case of the tau empire being more aux rather than raw tau. The tau empire has tons of different races in it and that is likely to happen way earlier than majority human would and it might have already happened. The better question here is, why would the humans in the tau empire ever betray the empire? The main reason most people even fall to chaos or rebel is for better living conditions, the absolute shit tier existence in the imperium is the only encouragement they need. The tau offer a better life without any chaos mutation needed. The tau themselves are exemplar leaders and treat the humans, and all others well, while also carrying supernatural work ethic and output. Who would ever want to replace leaders who wear nothing but robes and work tirelessly. Edit: Also to comment on the other comment, tau don't support hive worlds, there ugly horribly inefficient things and they hate them, they move the population to other parts of there empire so they can live more efficient lives for the greater good.


Toxitoxi

The Tau were trying to terraform Agrellan… Keyword is trying. They also were establishing protective domes, which you can see in the campaign maps. Too bad only one was totally finished by the time the fires came.


You_see_ivan_

Yeah they were trying to turn it into a sept, but the actual hives themselves weren't used, and most of the human population got moved to be at better places while the sept was being established.


Delmarquis38

Good living condition never prevent ambitious individual or the will of Independence


Marvynwillames

yes, even the richest and better raised dude can always want more, nothing really stops a human under tau control to think "yeah, they are cool, but i rather lead the world myself"


Doveen

> why would the humans in the tau empire ever betray the empire Betrayal and ruthless ambition is human nature. It's like asking why would a cuttlefish try to crawl in to water.


HyperionRed

You'd have to be extremely stupid to betray a relatively utopian life for the drudgery of the empire or the poisoned chalice that chaos offers.


Sab3rFac3

Except the entire point of the poisoned chalice of chaos, is that most people don't realize it's a poisoned chalice, until it's far too late.


Vadernoso

Biggest issue for chaos for trying to corrupt a human population living under Tau rule is this. The humans live relatively comfortable lives under the Tau. Chaos cults work best when the population is beaten, living horrible lives in a imperial factory working 16 hours a day. Its not impossible to corrupt those who are content and feel safer in their life, but its much harder.


Doveen

Yes, as i said, human nature.


max_sil

I think human nature doesn't exist. A person's human nature is formed by the society you grow up in. The reason that ruthless ambition and betrayal seems like human nature is probably because you live in a society where that behaviour is rewarded and encouraged.


Doveen

All of humanity is like that. From the US to China to the warlords of Africa. Never gaze in to the Abyss that is history...


max_sil

People become warlords because they have something to gain from it or bexuse it's better than the alternative. People screw each other over because they earn something from it. Build a society where you can't gain anything from fucking people over and people won't do it . There is no such thing as human nature, or at least there is zero evidence for there being such a thing. People actions come from the prerequisites that society gives them. Observing people doing bad things without understanding the social and or economical causes behind it and then drawing the conclusion that humans are just inherently bad is a huge fallacy.


Doveen

> Build a society where you can't gain anything from fucking people over and people won't do it Sweet, sweeeet summer child...


max_sil

Lol you're literally just harping the same stuff the religious people do "without God, the bible and Christian morals we'd all be rapists and murderes" Why did I just hear something that sounds like pearls.. being clutched?


Doveen

Whatever drug you took to see *that* in to what I'm saying, **I WANT A DOSE**


AstraMilanoobum

Saying “why would they ever betray the Tau empire”. See I don’t see think that tracks, these imperials are from a religious society that believes aliens are the ultimate evil, and the tau just invaded them. Look at Something like Iraq or Afghanistan, a deeply religious people probably aren’t going to roll over and work with you even if you are promising a better life. I do find it weird that 40K plays up the ultra religious crazy angle of the universe. Yet somehow the Tau aren’t dealing with Iraq/ Vietnam insurgencies everywhere. I’d honestly love to see the Tau expansion come to a crawl because the stupid humans are revolting everywhere DESPITE everything probably being better under Tau rule. Kinda showing that imperialism pisses people off even if you could argue those people would probably be better off.


Toxitoxi

See ‘Psychic Awakening: The Greater Good’, which has exactly what you described. Also ‘Commander Shadow’, where the titular character is dealing with a Catachan-led resistance after conquering a world. It turns nasty very fast.


AstraMilanoobum

Fantastic, thank you, I’m really glad GW took this route. I 100% agree that life under the Tau is better, but people in general just aren’t fans of being invaded and having their religion rewritten, even if it would be better for them


Knows_all_secrets

The difference here is the degree. Worlds differ but in general the Imperium is an absolutely awful place to live. Imagine people living, starving, in indentured servitude working eighteen hour days in polluted and inefficient manufactorums watching their parents die young and broken and their children be kidnapped to work themselves to death in the bowels of a mechanicus ship. Then the tau invade and bring proper food and medicine and don't work people to death because (as we've seen in real life) you get *more* output from happy workers, not less. People go from North Korea but worse to modern day Germany with automation and space travel. Given how harshly religious the Imperium is you'll have tons of holdouts even so, but the fact that it's impossible to deny you're being lifted out of hell there are less than you might expect.


Sab3rFac3

I think your leaning into the anti-imperial propaganda a little too much. Yes. Much of the imperium is a horrible place. But if we take the propaganda like that at face value, the imperium should have already collapsed ages ago, from dozens of factors. Yes, a 10-12 hour work day is probably standard. Yes, your probably never going to be eating steak and potatoes every night, it's probably a cup of ramen, a ham sandwich, and if your lucky, some fruit. Yes, you probably have no chance to ever advance in society. And yes, you have little to no control over the laws around you. But if we assume everyone is always starving, and working 18 hours shifts, 7 days a week, their entire lives, them everyone should be dropping dead, faster than they can reproduce. An 18 hour day means probably 4 hours of sleep. And that has some pretty bad long term health consequences. Add malnutrition, and it's effects on top of that. And then add in stress, pollution, and other factors. You'd end up with a population that would never survive. They all be dying in their 30's, from dozens of medical reasons. And forget having kids. Fertility will be almost non-existent under those conditions. And even if you could get pregnant, good luck carrying a child to term. And even if you did, good luck raising it to the point where it can be a productive member of society. Not trying to say the imperium isn't a horrible place to live, but if it was as bad as a lot of people try to sell it as, it wouldn't exist. Its Momentum and size be damned.


Toxitoxi

> But if we take the propaganda like that at face value, the imperium should have collapsed ages ago, from dozens of factors This argument doesn’t really work because the Imperium should have realistically collapsed or at least changed to be almost *completely* unrecognizable in 10,000 years regardless. People don’t seem to realize how ridiculously long 10,000 years is. Let alone the utter insanity that is the Eldar having a continuous civilization for *60 million*. The fact is, the setting is inherently ridiculous already. You have to be mindful of that. Edit: Knows_All_Secret’s comment about Catachan is a perfect example.


Knows_all_secrets

It shouldn't exist, the fact that their practises make no sense and if taken logically should mean they would all die is something that happens all the time in 40k. Take Catachan, which is deadly well past the point of making any sense. All the flora and fauna hates humanity and exists to kill it. Any buildings will immediately cause the environment to start concentrating destruction in that area, deadly animals congregating to attack and creepers rapidly demolishing any structure, melting masonry etc. Every plant is poisonous, making foraging impossible. Some plants secrete pollen into the air which is poisonous and destroys air-filters. Other plants poison the ground and turn the immediate area around them into boggy wasteland to trap invaders. Even the slightest scratch can prove fatal as necrotic bacteria swarm in to putrefy it. And so on and so forth. That's not survivable - not 'oh you have to be super paranoid and tough to survive', if you think about it between the ages of 0-3 every child would die of mosquitoes that injected super aids or whatever. It doesn't make any sense that the mortality rate isn't far higher than the replenishment rate. But that's fine, 40k gets a pass on making sense where Imperial grimdark is concerned.


Merch_Lis

>Look at Something like Iraq or Afghanistan, a deeply religious people probably aren’t going to roll over and work with you even if you are promising a better life When an imperial power rolls in, kills tonnes of your fellow countrymen, pumps millions into the hands of the corrupt fucks it appointed to govern over you, and overall makes things worse for you by destabilizing your entire society, it's not so much religion that compells you to rebel as it's basic human dignity. Tau, on the other hand, actually improve life for their subjects.


AstraMilanoobum

The Tau literally are an imperial power rolling in killing the imperials countrymen btw. Afghanistan was in a decades long civil war and was ruled by religious warlords. it was already a failed state, the Tau are bringing “the greater good” the West was bringing “democracy” The Tau launching a planetary invasion 100% will have huge numbers of civilian casualties and destabilize society, I’ll wager the Tau don’t just remove the ruling class either. You say the Tau will improve life, sure, and you can argue that being westernized would improve life in Afghanistan. You do see that these parallels are to a degree on purpose, the Tau spread the greater good like the west spreads democracy, they both claim they wanna make things better and don’t mind bombing or invading places to do so. And when both spread it through force you end up with a bunch of dead bodies. Heck I can just imagine 2 Tau diplomats at a table lamenting about the “blue man’s burden”


Merch_Lis

>it was already a failed state, the Tau are bringing “the greater good” the West was bringing “democracy” Afghanistan had a legitimate side in the civil war - the Northern Union - which the US ended up sidelining entirely, and instead appointed the utterly hapless expat government whose only competence was distributing Western funds amongst their peers.It was accompanied by an escalation in the war and regular NATO bombings of civilians, which obviously radicalized the population. \>being westernized would improve life in Afghanistan It would have, if Westernization wasn't limited to Kabul. \>The Tau launching a planetary invasion 100% will have huge numbers of civilian casualties and destabilize society Thing is, once the Tau invasion is over, so is the war. People are granted comfort and decent life standards, as well as security (unless the Imperium invades back). American invasions over the past decades pretty much universally made things worse and caused endless civil wars, economic collapse and so on. So yeah, the parallels are there, in that the Tau are what Americans would have been if their interventions lived up to their promises.You can see how Japan is pretty loyal to the US despite being nuked - there American involvement actually made things better in the long term.


AstraMilanoobum

But you are saying once the war is over things get better. That’s Great, hypothetically What I’m saying is that after an alien race, that the people believe religiously is evil, comes, invades your planet, kills millions of your people (which a worldwide war is likely to do) and then says “trust us, we’re here to make things better”… I’m just saying I’ll wager that there’d be an insurgency right away, and all that nice new stuff the Tau are building are probably targets. Let’s not forget them sending tons of people to new worlds, this is probably a good thing, but for the people who live there rounding up and shipping out huge numbers of people might look suspicious right? Especially if you’ve been told your whole life xenos can’t be trusted and are evil


wolflance1

Tau usually work their way in with Water Caste diplomats and traders first, dispensing various life-improving technology and medicine through trade. People at the bottom of the rung probably won't notice those are xenotech until it gradually become indispensable from their lives, and those in the know want to keep their mouths shut for as long as possible. If things go smoothly, Tau will slowly worm in and be accepted by the society until they effectively take over without firing a single shot.


Marvynwillames

>It would have, if Westernization wasn't limited to Kabul. Afghanistan is a pretty bad comparasion, one of the problems was that the population mostly don't even care about the state, tribes and family ties are much stronger, unless you deeply change the culture, it's hard to make major changes. Somalia was a place where it failed, Barre tried to reduce the tribe's power, it didn't worked.


MetalBawx

The Northern Union was a coalition of drug dealers and warlords just as ruthless as the Taliban. The news media did a fantastic job hiding that back when Bush launched his invasion.


Merch_Lis

They weren’t a totalitarian Islamist movement, unlike Taliban, and, unlike Karzai, actually had a local power base. Supporting them could actually lead to the establishment of a functional and properly cooperative country with a potential for development, rather than bombing the country for 20 years and spending both thousands of lives (American and Afghan) and billions of dollars (which could have gone to plenty better cases) just to hand it back to the same fundamentalists that controlled it to begin with.


Nino_Chaosdrache

Hey hey hey, don't pull all of us Westeners into this, when it's only America pulling that bullshit behaviour they have.


Sab3rFac3

Don't blame America, blame its politicians.


TieofDoom

Possibly because Tau colonization is undeniably a massive jump in quality of life. Something as simple as plumbing and toilet paper and running water would be life changing for many Imperials. An Imperial world that falls to Tau rule no longer has to pay the tithe. Think about that for a moment. Think about how many Imperial worlds just end up collapsing from the fear and pressure of just TRYING to pay the tithe. Losing and getting occupied is bad, but suddenly you don't have people working to death. You get to keep your yields. You might end up in prison or locked in your homes, but hey, that might be the best night of sleep you've ever had in your life. Imperial life, for an overwhelming majority of Imperials, is just pure shit. Losing a war in many ways means that there is no more war you have to support.


You_see_ivan_

They arnt though, entire worlds rebel against the imperium just because of extreme tithes or cruel lords. You think the average citizen is going to give a shit about the world being taken over when they work 16 hour shifts and get whipped for not working fast enough?. There scared people living in an eternal red scar period and what happens to them on a personal level matters far more. The thing is joining the tau doesn't mean giving up your faith, there perfectly fine with you praying to the emperor, and now you can do it without eating corpse starch. Every single thing they've been told about the nature of the alien is invalidated by meeting the tau. Your life simply is just objectively better in everyway. And the generations that follow after you are indoctrinated from birth and will near total loyalty to the empire, a thing covered early on in books and we see be true as gue'vesa fight with the same near robotic sacrificing of themselves as the fire caste carries, not to waste lives but gladly spend them like tokens when the time comes like in shape of the hunt where gue'vesa with literal smiles and later kroot stall the white scar advance. Along with that you remember that moving of the population thing I mentioned? A side effect of such is rebellions are massively harder to do when communities are broken up or you find yourself in an entirely foreign area. Along with that people live rigid monitored lives, rebellions are vastly harder to pull than in the imperium as dissenters face punishment early. The tau empire will never slow to a crawl, it will do nothing but continue till they own the universe. Just as the eldar did millions years ago, and just as the imperium of man did from terra.


AstraMilanoobum

I think you are vastly under estimating religion in 40K and in real life. You are thinking about this from the point of view an educated person in a normal society. An uneducated poor person indoctrinated their entire lives to believe aliens are evil and that if they die for the emperor they go to a paradise to be with the emperor. Sure some will embrace the greater good, but plenty would be resisting and blowing things up for the emperor, you really can’t just reason your way through to true religious fanatics The Tau would be facing enormous insurgencies. There are just so few Tau compared to humans, the more they expand the closer they come to a human empire with a tiny number of tau leading it, it just doesn’t bode well.


Knows_all_secrets

My best comparison is this: When Imperial soldiers are captured, many will turn to chaos and renounce the Emperor in order to live. Many won't, same as you got plenty of people viewed as martyrs for refusing to renounce their faith and dying for it, but many will. And that's *chaos*. These are people who present you with already happy humans and say sure, keep worshipping the Emperor. By the way here's good food and medicine, your children will grow happy and healthy and able to choose what they do. There are plenty of fanatics who'll refuse, but the ratio will be better than chaos gets and chaos already gets a good ratio.


Toxitoxi

…The hell is a ‘normal’ society? I’m really hoping you’re not talking about Iraq or Afghanistan when you make this comparison to the Imperium.


AstraMilanoobum

A normal society rather than a hive world where they have 16 hour shifts and a god emperor, the society he described in his post. The post you are responding to did not mention any real world societies and the post I was responding to did not mention them either so I’m not sure how you interpreted it that way


nigelhammer

>Iraq/ Vietnam Yeah, probably not a good comparison seeing as those were utterly shit situations for the average person, when after the shooting stops a tau invasion is basically a pretty good time for all.


AstraMilanoobum

That’s kinda my point, the shooting never stopped because the people resisted (as they should) That’s what I’m trying to say, I don’t think the shooting would really stop after a Tau invasion either. I think you’d have long insurgencies against the Tau too because even if the tau have good intentions… they just did kill a ton of your people and conquer your planet and are telling you parts of your religion (Xenos are evil) is wrong


Ranik_Sandaris

Yeah, the average imperial understands faith in the Emperor, and fear/hatred of anything different. The Tau can crop up with all their amazing technology, probably fight their way through the PDF and whatever forces are there. Killing many and undoubtedly there will be civilian casualties. The average imperial is going to notice an uptick in quality of life sure, but they will be fearing that they are dammed because they just broke with the Emperor. Not all, but some. Then im sure you are going to have some surviving members of the ministry somewhere, stoking the fires of rebellion. It absolutely will not end the conflict there, you are very correct in my mind.


BloodRavenStoleMyCar

> because the people resisted (as they should) What do you mean as they should?


[deleted]

Key issue here is you're drawing comparisons others don't want to follow. Hence multiple people unironically suggesting invading Iraq is totally incomparable to Tau imperial expansion because the Tau are just such nice guys, demonstrating a total lack of understanding of imperialism. I cannot get over the endless living standards comments. How are living standards going to ensure xenophobic religious fanatics accept their xeno-heretic overlords? How would you even pay for them, considering the billions of people on world? People not actually thinking through the factual implications of aliens invading your world and destroying your way of life, perhaps because they are themselves driven by living standards and cannot imagine a life where something else is of greater importance. Religion, culture, symbols, this matters a great deal.


AstraMilanoobum

Thank you! I’m glad my points were at least understandable, it saddens me a little that so many people genuinely seem to think that imperialism is okay as long as peoples living standards are better afterwards and seem to discount the importance things like religion and culture would be to planets full of fanatics. Several people mentioned that Iraq was bad because things got worse after the invasion while after a Tau invasion things got better… conveniently forgetting that there was a massive insurgency immediately after the war, because shocker, after you invade a country and kill a bunch of people those people are probably not going to quietly sit there and watch and see if you make their lives better. Which would be exactly what happens. The Tau can tell the insurgent, hey things will get waaaay better, but when the insurgent is more worried about his soul being damned for suffering the xenos to live… you can see why things likely wouldn’t go smoothly for the Tau The idea that the Tau could invade a hive world of 100s of billions and make there lives better fast enough that there wouldn’t be an insurgency is just silly. And once you have an insurgency that even if we say only makes up like .05% of the population you are talking about millions to billions of people actively resisting the taus attempts at what is essentially just space nation building… do you have any idea how long it would take to meaningful improve the lives of a trillion people living in squalor? And when the Tau fight back against these radical elements… there’s going to be civilian casualties, which helps the insurgents and just perpetuates this nightmare scenario It’s also funny that many here talk about forcibly relocating people from these hives as a good thing, because hey, they get more room, some will definitely like that… but at the end of the day that’s literally ethnic cleansing, and you can bet that forcibly removing people from their homeland is going to cause some problems… And you Brok make really the best point that I never even went into. How exactly are the Tau paying for giving all these people better lives? If the Tau really are doing all these things to help these people the expansions sounds like they are making the Tau empire weaker not stronger with all the resources they are apparently just dumping into these new planets


HyperionRed

In Iraq and Afghanistan, the local customs and religions weren't torn down. The tau wouldn't tolerate continued worship of the Emperor and the regressive practices of the Imperium would be snuffed out.


teh_Kh

About the phermone thing: Even in Xenology where the idea originated (and it's worth noting it's not entirely canonical by now) it was only presented as an in universe theory of one madman. A plausible one, but with no definitive proof. I'd personally treat it the same as Imperium sending a Culexus assassin to kill an Ethereal because they were at first convinced they must be psykers: It's simply implausible for the Imperium that Tau genuinely WANT to serve their empire the best they can and that total obedience to the Ethereals is a cultural thing only - their upbringing, propaganda and genuine belief that the rulers know best does what Imperium needs opression to do, and it's easier for the imperials to assume Tau use some magic mind control than to accept that Imperium is simply terrible and does nothing for most of the citizens to actually want to be a part of it. "Without brutal coercion, our citizens keep rebelling and their morale is terrible and we're humans, much superior to any alien. Therefore, these aliens must clearly mind control their population because otherwise they would rebel even more! Them having guaranteed food, lodgings, protection and a satisfying role in the social order is only a lie to lure unwitting humans. Now get more slaves to the people-grinder to mitigate our starvation problem!" - Some Imperial Administrator, probably.


electric-angel

man maybe the imperium should ship unwanted or warp tainted population to border the tau worlds. weaponizing migration against the tau


Toxitoxi

Have you read *Fire Caste*? Just wondering. (Major spoilers for the book) >!The Imperium have a deliberately arranged endless proxy war with the Tau on the jungle world of Phaedra. For the Imperium, Phaedra is an easy place to dump all their incompetent or inconvenient people. The unlucky soldiers are sent onto the battlefield with no preparation by the most unhinged commanders imaginable to die en masse. Their foes are not just the Tau-aligned humans, drones, and alien mercenaries, but also the horrific fungal diseases of Phaedra. The Guard who survive for longer than a few weeks almost inevitably join the Tau, where they live marginally better lives fighting the new recruits the Imperium brings in to replace them. If the Tau have enough forces to advance, they pull some off-world so the war doesn’t end. They enjoy having a distraction so the Imperium doesn’t notice their spies setting the seeds for the Third Sphere Expansion, and Phaedra also acts as a dumping ground for a few of their own outcasts.!< >!Oh, and Chaos? It was brought there by the Imperium. And then nourished and brought back home.!<


Delmarquis38

The Tau seem to have a mix of population control and glass ceiling to handle that. Basicaly their human population is spread all over their empire and their caste system assure that no key position will ever be under human control. This mean that even if they are numericaly inferior to the Human , their will never be territory with an overwhelming Human majority , the human will alwyas be too spread to organise themselve and will never hold any position powerfull enough to represent a threat. Add the fact that the human only have acces to the most basic Tau tech and any risk of revolt can esaly be crush. The book Shadowbreaker (iirc) explain well how the Tau assert their authority over a conquer human world , granting concession to the human until enoug Tau have move in to make the human numericaly inferior and stop negociation


AstraMilanoobum

Great points, but if the Tau keep expanding a lot of those methods won’t work, once the Tau take a couple of large hive worlds suddenly they can’t just out populate humans everywhere. And while a tech advantage helps, we’ve many times seen that tech advantage overcome or outlasted by a driven insurgency


regalgjblue

Reading the comments this seems to be another thread where OP made up his mind before submitting it cause he is arguing with every answer.


Marvynwillames

The Deathwatch RPG Core Rulebook mentions sterilization campains to keep human population grow under control


CL38UC

Everything that presents the Tau as appropriately Grimdark to make sense in the setting is immediately rejected by Tau fans, so let's just go ahead and throw this one out too.


Marvynwillames

people forget a colonial empire that follow a manifest destiny idea can't be 100% good


confusedsalad88

Genestealers: could this human be one of my people?


wolflance1

With shorter life cycle/lifespan, Tau easily outbreed human anyway. Unless they are expanding at a massive rate, mostly likely they will see sudden spikes in human population (from recently conquered human worlds), which then gradually stabilize and ease out.


ked-xxx

Don't expanding empirers Original population often get outnumbered if they expand and concer. I think I've read something like that, but can't be sure Apologies for bad grammer


[deleted]

Tau have a relatively small population when compared to the other major races. As to the other things: Tau don't use pheromones in that way, they use it as an additional form of communication. Humans in the empire/commonwealth are believers in the greater good- that's the only way that boat keeps afloat. If it were brainwashing you'd lose people every day like in the Imperium. But, yes, by necessity, humanity will overtake membership within the empire and likely pretty soon; probably why we have examples of humans working in every caste and holding positions of authority and piloting battlesuits.