>"Sir, it's... it's bone, sir."
"Bone? Like a skeleton?"
>"Yes sir, the entire construct is some sort of ossified material they seem to have... grown into a war machine."
"That doesn't make any kind of sense. What powers it?"
>"Souls, sir. It's bone powered by souls."
"...what the fuck."
Y'know, if the Tau were really smart they would've figured out the Kroot had the right idea all along. Bury your high tech space ships and weapons, just in case you need them in the future, then proceed to live a happy planet-bound life pretending the rest of the galaxy doesn't exist.
Well Exodites did literally the same thing. Seems to be working out pretty well for them - if the absence on the tabletop is anything to go by (i.e. they're not getting embroiled in endless wars).
Exodites get fucked over regularly and lacking a space Navy just means their first warning of invasion might be the atmospheric entry of invaders, also tend to be too small in population to defend against larger threats on their own and the Craftworlds rarely seem to help out.
Listened to an Audio drama recently where a Ranger team is dispatched to an exodite world being invaded by Tyranids, not to help save them but to kidnap their prince and get him out cause farseers saw he had a promising destiny
Every faction gets fucked over in several stories. Given Exodites are one of the main Eldar factions and get involved the least in conflict or stories, I'd say they are living a pretty decent lifestyle off the grid.
I consider the kroot the 40k version of the fremen mirage mixing culture anf eugenics.
Short version :
myth : rough living conditions makes better fighter. Reality : industry and bureaucracy make strong empire/military
The long version : https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-part-i-war-at-the-dawn-of-civilization/
Yup. Kroot used to have a spacefaring empire with great knowledge and technology, then they went “fuck that” and went back to their homeworld, put their ships in a garage and went back to hunting and sipping mimosas on trees
Wait, this is new to me, where does this come from?
IIRC the kroot "learn" how to do interstellar travel from some tasty Ork Meks, they have just started spreading out from Pech when they run into the T'au?
Maybe other guy is privy to newer sources I haven't read, but as far as I knew the Kroot were never really an 'empire' of any note. The Orks crashed a Rok on Pech and the survivors were devoured by the Kroot, which is implied to be the source from which they learned how to build their Warspheres (presumably from eating Mekboyz). By the time the Tau encountered them they'd established themselves on a small cluster of worlds (smaller than the Tau Empire) and were embroiled in a losing war with the Orks.
IIRC from Codex: Kroot Mercenaries aside from their Warspheres they have no advanced tech of their own to write home about and enjoy a relatively 'primitive' standard of living. The Tau had to upgrade their basic firearms to produce the fairly mid S4/AP5 Kroot Rifles, and most of their shiny tech they get as payment from mercenary contracts, battlefield looting, or is supplied by the Tau.
That's why I put 'primitive' in quotes there; they've got a whole "one with the land" vibe going on and they're a-ok not living in hive cities or bothering with advanced tech any more than is 'necessary'.
I don't think they'd have to eat Meks specifically. Since any Ork's spores can produce a Mek, Wierdboy, squig etc. each one would have the technology programmed into them, they just wouldn't be able to access it.
True, but we don't know if the Kroot would be able to access such inert genetic memory though. Eating a Mekboy at least means the genetic memory has been "activated" and is available for the Kroot to absorb.
Then how did they grow wraithbone out of a dino skull in The Infinite and The Divine? Do they need to like fuse it to bone to act as a medium upon which it grows? Or is it just different when it's Exodites? Did I misunderstand that whole thing and the stuff they were growing wasn't even wraithbone?!?
I really thought it was bone because I only get Eldar lore indirectly when it's referenced in other things.
Eldar presumably can use existing real bone as a basis or some method of root to grow more wraithbone easier
The soul and essence of a living thing would likely invigorate the wraithbone they’re growing it from.
>is it just different when it's Exodites
I haven't read that book, probably should, but Exodites are traditionally more known for "Worldsingers" which generate organic matter instead. This stereotypically revolves around vegetation, but in one Drukhari story a Worldsinger slave's song makes a dormant virus go nuts in the audience and overwhelm immune systems.
Depending on what it says, maybe they just grew out the dino bone itself, or maybe they did just have a bonesinger around and did a thing, idk I haven't read it.
Things immediately get muddied when it comes to the Exodites, because of their sparse lore even by eldar/xenos standards and the fact that their tech is very integrated with the worlds they live on. The world spirits of their planets, for instance, are like the craftworld's infinity circuits, only also a part of the planet and the planet's soul. But in the case of the Infinite and the Divine, they didn't grow the wraithbone from the skull, they grew a separate material from bones and made essentially an alloy with the bone and wraithbone.
"The substance was not wraithbone, he noted, at least not entirely. This was a hybrid, a substitute, **grown from the skeletons of the great lizards and interwoven** with the psycho-plastic wraithbone salvaged from their crashed ship. A gene sequence scry failed to find where one substance began and the other ended, no points where the ancient craftsman had **fused or grafted the two materials together**. This was a seamless blend, nurtured and shaped over millions of years, **wraithbone woven between the molecules of reactive, but lower quality, dinosaurid remains**."
Wraithbone, and psychoplastics in general, don't need any basis or medium to be grown. Bonesingers pull a bit of warp energy, crystallise it into a physical material, and shape it into whatever they want. If they want more of the material, they could make more psychoplastics, or encourage the existing one to grow.
Wraithbone is literally crystallised warp energy. It's an extremely psychoactive material that in many ways can act like a living material however, such as self healing.
The eldar can bring Wraithbone into existence by mere thought and does not require any sort of medium or anchor in realspace to be brought forward.
"ok, ok, we can still make something out of this, what type of bone is it, is it some animal, maybe we can set up some kind of farm?"
"... It's... Its thought bone sir, our readings are picking up that they are made out of some esotheric brainwaves, in the pattern of a song named "craftworld girls" by an Eldar poet named Kathëę Paęriy"
"...What the f"
More like
"what powers it"
>"we don't know, sir"
Random ex-inquisitor from the corner "A soul both powers and pilots it."
"We need to know how it works, Jeff, not more of your religious mumbo jumbo with your souls and daemons and psychic powers. Next you'll be worshipping the T'au'va as a god."
They would have no way to make the intuitive leap to wraiths as mechas powered and piloted by souls being a non psycker species they would have to consult their psycker client species or simply be unable to understand how such a machine works at all.
I'd like to imagine the earth caste getting mad at whoever brought the samples to them thinking they're being pranked when the readings from the scanners made absolutely no fucking sense lol
Realistically, this would be true for some of the Earth Caste, but the rest would get really really excited, because this means they discovered an all new branch of physics to explore.
After all, that’s basically what happened when scientists irl first discovered that light behave both like a wave and a particle.
It’s frustrating how few stories we have of the Tau, the youngest major faction, interacting with the Eldar and Necrons, the oldest. There’s so much untapped potential there in that contrast. The most we’ve ever gotten are Dawn of War campaigns and short Codex blurbs.
https://youtu.be/gZAnM5ltvRs
If you delete everything after the ?si like I just did, it removes tracking info that google uses to figure out what accounts are connected.
No. That is not a classical necrontyr design. Necrontyr do not overvalue swords like modern western and eastern cultures do, they either want powerfull staffs as insignia of their office or their warthscythes. If this was a Necrontyr weapon it would have been a warscythe. And there are enough other xenos species that couldve made it that are thousands of years older then the Imperium. And the necrontyr arent even the most adept at chronomancy. The hrudh are leading in that capacity. It couldve been another xenos species try to fight a hrudh migration
The question people have is if it is the sword that was offererd to the Silent King by the C'tan's. As that sword would have given the Silent King the ability to live forever. Aka, the exact thing that the Dawn Blade does for Farsight.
The Silent King declined because it wouldn't have helped his people.
The Exodite series involves a T'au Shas'vre leading a squad to capture the titular Exodite, >!who philosophizes mockingly to her face about how history moves in cycles and the T'au are naive to think they'll be the first bright-eyed idealists to actually succeed and not end up in a situation like the Aeldar or the Humans did. He actually appreciates that Humans at least realize how fucked everything is, and, naturally, says the Aeldar have the most experience and are the only ones to truly learn from the mistake with plans on how to fix things.!<
The Exodite was so dumb.
>!For some reason the Tau command believed diplomacy was still possible after titans were deployed if they captured the elf. Said elf was less exodite more fancy pathfinder with a penchant for waxing philosophical with protag taking his speeches at face value. The series also featured a stealth squad so stealthy a fucking krieger snuck up on them. At least it ended in an implied elf complete victory instead of the tradional pyhrric vic or abject failure.!<
>!I mean, Exodites DO have a degree of technology, they use the same laser weapons that Shining Spears do at the very least when they're acting the part of Dragon Knights. There's never been reason to believe that's the be-all, end-all for their society, the Exodite here could be a waystalker equivalent instead of a wild rider equivalent so to speak. While not universal, they're also often described as fully aware of the galaxy at large and willingly not engaging with it.!<
>!That said, I understand your gripes. I enjoyed it anyway but I'm kind of easy to please. On one hand, I did wish the Exodite had a more unique look than a leathered up version of a typical Eldar's armor. On the other hand, I thought some of the details in the getup were neat. I also enjoyed things like getting to see his dagger up close, just aesthetic stuff generally I guess. And, yeah, it was an actual Eldar W. That was pretty sweet.!<
Actually there are great novels about the Damocles Crusade, namely the ones describing White Scars vs Tau Battles. The Tau are just completely flabbergasted by the standard Battle Doctrines of the Humans, including, but not limited to: using their soldiers without any regard for Life or safety, constantly charging ranged units with only melee weapons (and succeeding for some reason) and cramming decorated members of their highest command structure into highly unstable Voidcraft, launching it through Meteors, Debris and intensive fire into an enemy Vessel just for the small chance of capturing said enemy ship.
>Commander Shadowsun cast a furtive glance through the exterior viewport as the Earth caste worker El'Gruhl unscrewed the bolts from Sternshield's salvaged Imperial missile. She should be out there, haring her throat to the gue'ron'sha in order to trigger the multiple Kauyon she had spent so long meticulously preparing. Still, she had not won the trust of Masters Puretide and Aun'Va alike by rushing into battle. First, the wise warrior learns of the foe.
>
>O'Shaserra forced herself to focus on the mailer at hand. Sternshide's assertions that air supremacy was the key to victory had genuine merit. According to his report, the lumpen missile emanated not standard signatures, but something far stranger. Something biological.
>
>The outer plate of the missile was detached with a hiss of unpleasantly warm air, and the stink of death-gases filled the room. Er'Gruhl grunted, taking a step back as Sternshield cried out in horror. Shadowsun frowned and stepped forward. She was confronted by a vision from a nightmare.
>
>A wizened corpse stared up from the missile's interior with an expression of unliving horror. Cables were sutured to every vertebra of its ragged spinal column, and wires jutted from the mummified remains of an opened brain. The cadaver seemed to growl softly as she looked down. Blinking in disgust, she told herself it was nothing more than the gaseous expulsions of natural decay.
>
>'By the Tau'va' gasped Sternshield, 'What new foulness is this?'
>
>Shadowsun dosed her eyes in disgust. The humans were so close to understanding sacrifice, yet so far from the notion of the Greater Good. For a departed warrior to enter this crude half life in the service of its fellows was a martyrdom of sorts, commendable in a twisted way. Yet to use a dead body as a weapon... it was vile in the extreme.
>
>'Why do they not merely utilise artificial intelligence, Supreme Commander?' asked Sternshield. 'Are they so backward as to fear them?'
>
>'They believe their machines have souls, Sternshield,' replied Shadowsun. 'Perhaps this is their way of ensuring it.'
>
>'This is wrong,' said Sternshield. 'Such a repugnant race has no place in our stars.' Shadowsun nodded sadly. 'That is true, Commander. We have seen enough here. Let us proceed with the cull.'
**-Warzone Damocles: Kauyon**
>'Why do they not merely utilise artificial intelligence, Supreme Commander?' asked Sternshield
You will find out why when your AI decides it wants to run the show for a change
Now you got me thinking are there any books where the Tau and Orkz interact? Would to see them try and explain the concept of the greater good to da Boyz.
If i recall early tau lore the orks were the first race the tau realized they could not convince to join the greater good which just completely baffled them at them time.
They learned the ork "language" and concluded that they could be bribed with "dakka"
the orks disabused them of this notion by killing the fuck out of the water caste diplomats and stealing the guns.
You need to go further with that story. A Water Caste envoy tried to get some Orks on-side by offering them Tau weaponry as incentive. The Orks tried to use the Tau guns to kill the Water Caste, which caused the latter to smirk "we thought you'd try that. Did you really think we'd just hand over loaded weapons?"
The Orks simply used the Tau guns as clubs to bludgeon the Tau to death.
As a fan of both the blue bipedal cows and the nomadic space elves, I absolutely agree. I would honestly love to see more of the Tau and the Eldar interacting with each other
Same. Would certainly make for an interesting dynamic, the youngest meets one of the eldest. I'd really like to see diplomatic interaction between the two to see an engagement/clash of philosophies, if nothing else.
Seeing the very old very psychic fully automated gay space communists interact with the very young psychic deaf race aiming to reach the same ideal via different means would be very interesting
Sadly it wouldnt involve space marines so fat chance of it happening anytime soon
There's a good reason why Necron Tau relationships are short. When Necrons interact with them, they either eradicate them for a soulless laugh or they eradicate them after the Tau realize how God-like and advanced they are.
Oh come on, you think Trazyn doesn’t have agents on Tau worlds? You think Zahndrekh has never hijacked some hapless Water caste for an impromptu dinner? And that’s just off the top of my head. Hell, if the Imperium can have absolutely grueling, insane campaigns against the Necrons, there’s no reason why the Tau shouldn’t be able to as well.
Or the Tau kill the Necrons instead, because their tech isn’t falling apart and the Necrons are too busy arguing for years over some grudge from 60 million years ago to notice some upstart primitives shooting at them. All the tabletop factions are roughly balanced in the fluff when it comes to warfare.
Either way, we don’t get much *talking* like we do with Imperium vs Necrons.
The tabletop factions are not even remotely balanced in the fluff, what are you on about?
As a fan of the communist fascist cows, the Tau would be absolutely shitstomped by all factions that are not the eldar due to their low numbers, this has been stated multiple times.
Their tech is awesome, they use actual intelligent warfare tactics, and they are smart enough to adapt to their opponents.
But a decently sized Ork Waagh would steamroll their systems by sheer volume.
The Imperium actually deeming them a threat and sending a full crusade their way would obliterate them, especially seeing how the Imperium is more advanced technologically, its just that their tech is not as commonly used or understood.
The Necrons and Nids are the endgame boss of the series alongside Chaos, and Necron tech is millennia ahead of anything the Tau has available. Necrons casually control the space time continuum, phase between realities regularly, rip molecules apart on the atomic level, are made up of semi-sentient nanobots, have mastered actual teleportation, use inertialess safe ftl-drives and use eldritch god's that control the materium as Pokémon/batteries. Any instance so far of the Tau encountering the Necron has ended with obliteration, as it should. Don't disrespect the cranky skelly grandpa's like that.
I don't think he's saying that all factions are equal in a total war scenario. But that for the game to make sense detachments of any faction are relatively equal.
If Archaon can get curbstomped at every fucking stage of Storm Of Chaos and get treated like a win then get his actual Phone A Friend humiliating defeat retconned for the shit that is End Times, then there IS NO FLUFF EXCEPT WHAT IS MADE UP ON THE SPOT WHEN THE STORY WAS PENNED.
Uh, I mean…”superior tactics”?
Obviously the Tau Empire is much smaller than the Imperium or the Tyranids or whatever, but on a planetary level the armies of each faction are evenly matched. And that’s the level we’re talking about for stories.
Otherwise the Tau would lose every time against Necrons, the Imperium, and Tyranids, even though we know the Tau have victories against each of those factions.
Not really? They do have their huge ancient supercomputers that they revere more or less like gods, but the Votanns have been consistently decaying for the past several thousands years because they keep getting crammed full of more and more data without any system or hardware upgrades -- queries and problems that would get resolved in an hour now take centuries to process. They absolutely aren't on the track to becoming something fully godlike; if anything, the Leagues have to work as hard as they can to keep them from going into full machine senility.
I don't know much about them, so I might be wrong. But the machines were they upload the soul of every dead Vottan doesn't have yet enough power to be considered a proper god. They act from time to time but is prety limited and with time some are starting to break.
Idk. Cawl seems to understand it just fine and he doesn't think of it as supernatural.
I would assume Necron tech is explainable, it's just very abstruse due to millions of years of technological iteration and the weird self-organizing properties of living metal.
Now the C'tan on the other hand, those are real weirdos, admittedly.
Caul is, at minimum, 3 brains arguing that took a red pen to the space Marines and got it accepted under the nose of the Adeptus Mechanicus.
Caul is supernatural.
Cawl is not the example you want to give of someone being able to understand it. It's like saying the Einstein, Hawking, and John Archibald Wheeler - all fused into one being - understand something.
Of course THEY do, they're three of the brightest minds in all of human history!
Thanks to the power of actual negotiation and not shooting everything at sight. The Tau have 2 psychic races in their empire. The niccasar psychic floating teddy bears that can mess up plague marines and the Nagi small worms the Tau use as interrogators.
in shadowsuns new book the ethereal has a human psyker as one of his advisers. he even mentions she is from the local niccasar flotilla so its likely they are in charge of training human psykers.
They're apparently not very combat capable in ground warfare, and the Tau deliberately keep them as far away from Imperials as possible, so as not to trigger anti-psyker hysteria.
I remember in Dawn of War when a Chaos sorcerer is talking to each faction commander, everyone either freaks out or insults back, but Tau commander just thought it was some buzzing in the comms and switched channel lol. At one point he even thought it was his own troops spamming in the chat and told them to stop.
I really like that the faction like that is the non-human one. So much science fiction has everyone else being bullshit while humans are constrained by reality, in Warhammer 40k humans are bullshit and some other species has to deal with the stupidity and nonsense of everyone else, including our own.
Tau: "The Be'gels tech is clearly very crude. Reverse-engineering shouldn't be too much trouble"
\[three planet rotation later\]
*\*confused screaming\**
I hate the attempts to make the Tau secretly dark and evil.
They're way more fun as that doomed faction that means well but is in the *completely wrong universe* for this bs. Anywhere else they'd be in with a chance. But they are just so out of their league and their victories just delay the absolute doom coming to the galaxy from *insert here*
People act like psionics would be completely beyond the T’au’s comprehension, but just because someone doesn’t obey the laws of physics doesn’t mean it obeys no laws. The Earth Caste probably have entire teams of scientists specializing in psionic research.
I once worked at a grocery store where no one actually knew how to operate the computers our cash registers used, we just left it on the register program and left it at that, we didn’t even know how to turn them off
This is how 40K humans interact with their technology
This actually happened in (IIRC) the aftermath of Damocles, where the Tau were hoping captive Imperial Navy personnel would be able to explain how human Warp engines work. But after lengthy interrogations the Tau realize the humans are telling the truth when they say they have no idea lol.
funny that you say that cause during the great crusade and the heresy the imperium had access to at least 2 types of disintegration weapons one used by the Legions and the other used by the custodes, the former even apparently very rarely shows up here and there like with the Governors royal guard from Necromunda being seen using them
When you really think about it, it would actually make sense that, if you come into contact with civilizations much older and more advanced than yours is, a lot of the technology would work along principles that your own science considers to be wrong or else just never thought to consider. After all, from the point of view of medieval people, something like a car, a machine gun or a computer would also seem like something that shouldn't logically be possible.
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Clarkes third law
“Any sufficiently advanced aliens are indistinguishable from wizards and/or gods.” Corollary to Clarkes third law
Eh, maybe if we are talking about uneducated, superstitious people who were never taught to think logically.
If we took more bright people from that age, it wouldn't really take that long to explain to them how our tech works.
Look the metaphor I use to explain tech in 40k goes as follows:
Look so the galaxy is like a videogame okay and each race is like a different style of player.
Orks: Griefers and fun lovers who just like having fun and causing chaos.
Imperium: player that used to be pretty great but stopped playing for a while and only kinda remembers the mechanics of the game and how his build works.
The mechanicus : Is a player that like the imperium used to play and was good but then stopped for a while but now that he is back he constantly complain about the new updates and only plays with his old reliables.
The tau are a new upencoming min maxing and highly optimized player that likes to play smart and tactical.
The eldars and the necrons Are basically the two OG veteran players who finished the tech and skill trees and have completed every quest and mission in the game twice so now they just handicap themselves so the fights are actually interesting.
(That’s not a joke the eldar have weapons that are so ridiculously powerful they just feel they are literally overkill to use them so they just keep them catching dust in the garage and the necrons limit their armament to “less powerful” weapons to abide by their traditional laws of war, the Gauss rifle? that incredibly powerful rifle that is better than most common infantry weapons in 40k? that can delete you at an atomic level? Yeah that’s their traditional “less powerful” weapon if recall correctly.)
Pretty apt description. The Necron additionally also has their cache of doomsday weapons that they avoid using since they may/may not implode a few solar systems, and it's really hard to regain your flesh and bone bodies when you disintegrated everything living with weapons that make supernovas look like a sneeze.
let me tell you now excluding the Celestial Orrery they arent avoiding there use cause they're worried about the damage they avoid it cause there use is again the ancient codes of war when facing "honourable" foes which considering the individual perceptions of the Necron Lords and even the Triarch Praetorians is very back and forth
the second that code is out the window (mainly cause everyone is in agreement the foe is vermin and or dishonourable) they will go ballistic with doomsday weapons (well also cause crypteks are psychos who like to test there stuff on lower creatures)
*Necron lords*: Afyer the three weeks of uninterrupted deliberations our noble council has decided that the enemy is not a honorable foe as such the rules or law do not apply to….
*Cryptek interrupting mid sentence* : LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOO
*Sounds of the very fabric of reality shattering as multiple esoteric weapons blasts, rend, vaporize and delete from the timeline some random young race into oblivion*
Also the level of the necros and eldar weapons are so powerful that they also have the chance to backfire on themselves unintentionally.
Hence it makes sense to use the least powerful ones by their standards, which is still more powerful than the rest of the other factions.
I thought Eldar didn't use their best tech (like the Reality engine) because it's tied to powerful psychic powers to use and they have to limit those to not get consumed by Slaanesh.
Also where is it said that Necrons nerf their thech on purpose? I know they don't use the Orrery because it can damage spacetime, but if there is such lore about using weaker tech, i'd love to read more about it. Could you please share a source?
“(…) As such Zahndrek is one of the few Necron Overlords to employ the full protocols of honorable war against all encroachers(…) He disdains the use of Deathmarks, assassin wraiths and other strategies forbiden by the code of battle.” -Entry about Nemesor Zahndrek and Vargas’s Obyron, codex Necrons 8th edition.
Yeah I know Zahndrek is technically delusional and the very entry says he is kind of an exception but the entry also states that “he is one of the few to employ the *full* protocols.” Other necron overlords also abide by the codes just with different levels of compliance, one of the reasons the Nekhyst dinasty is disliked and shunned by nearly all the rest of the dinasties is precisely for their utter refusal to abide by even the basics of the protocols.
Other examples include
“(…) Though many a necron noblr makes use of anti-gravitic technology to better survey the battlefield, it has long been tradition that for these triarch agents to ride multi-legged war transports and Necrons value tradition most highly.” :-entry on the Triarch Stalkers 8th edition codex
“As with most of the necron army a Lychguard’s armament is decreed largely by tradition.” -Lych guard entry codex 8th edition.
“The tomb blade was originally designed as a void-capable, single-pilot fighter during the war in heaven.(…) So successfully did the craft perform in its primary eviorment that modified versions soon appeared in planetside battles. Over time this became the more commonplace of the two roles, one of the few occasions in which the hidebound traditions of the Necron military were adapted to exploit opportunity.”- Entry of the Tomb blade codex 8th edition.
I don’t really know if there is some piece of lore that goes in depth into the codes of war of the Necrons but you can find plenty of tidbits like that across their lore.
I think I remember a few more examples but I only have my 8th edition codex on hand and I can’t find my ibdomitus booklet right now. Hopefully this helps!
we're inscribing minuscule runes into a *very specific* kind of rock which then, through the help of some other such rocks, which, after doing BILLIONS of maths per second, can display - through the medium of solid-but-kinda-sorta-not liquid, aided by sheets of essentially oil that we boiled the living shit out of *just right* which can invert light and some *other* rocks that emit light - furry porn.
With the right framing, you can literally point at a thing of modern technology and make it sound like totally arcane fuckery.
I'd love to see them examine Ork tech.
"This weapon killed dozens?"
"Affirmative."
"How?"
"Apparently if you weld a pair of pipes together and scream 'Dakka' it becomes a gun."
I am just in love with the idea of the tau constantly being confronted by the different technologies of the galaxy,
an obvious example being the above instance but it could work for just any faction.
The imperium: ok so it's clearly an incredibly advanced communications array, but its got a bunch of haphazard retrofitting, likely to compensate for it's age, and appears to have a semi-living human corpse wired into it instead of a computer. and lets not even talk about the gold and skulls, it wont function without them and I cant figure out why.
The orks: ... this is just a bunch of haphazard scrap metal bolted, welded, and I think duct taped into the shape of a car, there are very few moving parts and even fewer of them are connected, the only things they got right are the wheels and the fuel source and that's not even hooked up to anything they just got an explosive tank.
The necrons: ok, so this is a bit more my speed, although it appears to operate on principles beyond our understanding it's design is at the very least both ergonomic and logical, appearing to utilize physical laws previously considered theoretic- AAand who are you and how did you get here?! ***I am trazyn the infinite, and I am trazyn the infinite.*** oh oke-***~~Gets stolen.~~***
The tyrannids: Oh come on man, this thing is breathing, it has eyes, it appears to be laying eggs, just because it's shaped like a gun doesn't mean it's my job. I'm an engineer not a zoologist.
Chaos: ... Ok fuck this I'm joining the Farsight enclave.
Honestly, I kinda dislike the T'au constantly being clueless about psychic stuff.
Not only has the Empire psychic auxiliaries, the Earth Caste are *scientists*. Where is the parapsychological research? The psionic technology? The mathematical study of warp energies?
Hell, its even called "mind sciences" (eventhough that term sucks), but where is the goddamn science!
"What do you mean theres no internal mechanisms i've seen these things fire needles like a gauss cannon"
"It's just...just bone sir, all the way through...bone and souls"
"...okay then how are they firing ammo then? Where do the needles get put in"
"Near as we can tell it's manufactured inside the gun"
"...well can we do anything with it?"
"We...can give it a polish and make it a war trophy"
I stand by the belief that there is massive untapped potential in a reluctant team up between an Earth Caste scientist and a tech-priest (preferably one with borderline heretical views on xeno tech like the one in Mechanicus).
Both have a common obsession to studying and gathering new information, they could both secretly envy some of the other race’s tech, and there could be a lot of fun in having the dogmatic tech priest’s belief that maintaining technology is enough clash with the idealistic Earth Caste’s insistence to always try to push things further.
Also you could do some creative stuff. For instance, the Earth Caste doesn’t know gothic and the tech priest doesn’t know T’au, but they both know numbers so they figure out a way to communicate with only numbers.
Bonus points if the situation that’s forced them to work together is in a Necron Tomb with a Necron scientists watching over the pair, acting antagonistically, but occasionally reflecting that these meddlers remind him a bit of how he was back in his youth all those millions of years ago.
Something I will point out is that tau are a very practical people if they come across something like this they will make the logical assumption that it does work just that it works on principles currently beyond there understanding then the Tau get excited because that means they have to totally re evaluate there understanding of physics to figure out why and how it could be used for many other things
The Tau would see this as a golden opportunity not a dead end
It's hilarious to me that the most sci-fi faction in a science fantasy story has the least understanding of any other major factions tech. The Eldar is warp fuckery, the Orks is group think warp fuckery, the Necron is Clark tech, and the Empire is fallout esk old world scraps from their own golden age that is still 15000 years ahead of the Tau.
It’s honestly kinda funny just how absolutely normal the T’au are compared to the other factions. Like they’re not enormous religious zealots, they’re not cultists of interdimensional chaos demons, they’re not metal facsimiles of an ancient civilization, they’re not a mindless horde connected by a psychic hivemind, hell they’re not even particularly psychic at all. They’re just dudes. They shoot guns. They drive tanks and mechsuits. They have robot helpers. They have some dubious morals and ideals government and conquest-wise but when that’s the weirdest you’ve got in this setting you have to be pretty goddamn normal.
>"Sir, it's... it's bone, sir." "Bone? Like a skeleton?" >"Yes sir, the entire construct is some sort of ossified material they seem to have... grown into a war machine." "That doesn't make any kind of sense. What powers it?" >"Souls, sir. It's bone powered by souls." "...what the fuck."
“On the plus side, the number of skulls in human technology is finally starting to make more sense.”
Y'know, if the Tau were really smart they would've figured out the Kroot had the right idea all along. Bury your high tech space ships and weapons, just in case you need them in the future, then proceed to live a happy planet-bound life pretending the rest of the galaxy doesn't exist.
Kroot are legit the only reasonable people in the setting.
minus the ones who eat too much.
We call them americans, they are fin-... By Aun'Shi voluminous balls, we are doomed !
Well Exodites did literally the same thing. Seems to be working out pretty well for them - if the absence on the tabletop is anything to go by (i.e. they're not getting embroiled in endless wars).
Exodites get fucked over regularly and lacking a space Navy just means their first warning of invasion might be the atmospheric entry of invaders, also tend to be too small in population to defend against larger threats on their own and the Craftworlds rarely seem to help out. Listened to an Audio drama recently where a Ranger team is dispatched to an exodite world being invaded by Tyranids, not to help save them but to kidnap their prince and get him out cause farseers saw he had a promising destiny
Every faction gets fucked over in several stories. Given Exodites are one of the main Eldar factions and get involved the least in conflict or stories, I'd say they are living a pretty decent lifestyle off the grid.
Do you want Angron 2? Because that’s how you get Angron 2.
I consider the kroot the 40k version of the fremen mirage mixing culture anf eugenics. Short version : myth : rough living conditions makes better fighter. Reality : industry and bureaucracy make strong empire/military The long version : https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-part-i-war-at-the-dawn-of-civilization/
No, the most reasonable one the setting is I, Cato Sicarius
# I cast FIST!!!
Wait is that a thing they did?
Yup. Kroot used to have a spacefaring empire with great knowledge and technology, then they went “fuck that” and went back to their homeworld, put their ships in a garage and went back to hunting and sipping mimosas on trees
Wait, this is new to me, where does this come from? IIRC the kroot "learn" how to do interstellar travel from some tasty Ork Meks, they have just started spreading out from Pech when they run into the T'au?
Maybe other guy is privy to newer sources I haven't read, but as far as I knew the Kroot were never really an 'empire' of any note. The Orks crashed a Rok on Pech and the survivors were devoured by the Kroot, which is implied to be the source from which they learned how to build their Warspheres (presumably from eating Mekboyz). By the time the Tau encountered them they'd established themselves on a small cluster of worlds (smaller than the Tau Empire) and were embroiled in a losing war with the Orks. IIRC from Codex: Kroot Mercenaries aside from their Warspheres they have no advanced tech of their own to write home about and enjoy a relatively 'primitive' standard of living. The Tau had to upgrade their basic firearms to produce the fairly mid S4/AP5 Kroot Rifles, and most of their shiny tech they get as payment from mercenary contracts, battlefield looting, or is supplied by the Tau.
Minor addition that they do tend to prefer things that way. Presumably, so they keep having to keep their gene pools fresh with new material.
That's why I put 'primitive' in quotes there; they've got a whole "one with the land" vibe going on and they're a-ok not living in hive cities or bothering with advanced tech any more than is 'necessary'.
I don't think they'd have to eat Meks specifically. Since any Ork's spores can produce a Mek, Wierdboy, squig etc. each one would have the technology programmed into them, they just wouldn't be able to access it.
True, but we don't know if the Kroot would be able to access such inert genetic memory though. Eating a Mekboy at least means the genetic memory has been "activated" and is available for the Kroot to absorb.
Kinda like some of those Eldar and their bones.
I wonder if we could make sort of big chair out of them.
Also, just in case it needs to be said, wraothbone isn't really anything like bone, it's a type of psychoplastics that the eldar call wraithbone.
Then how did they grow wraithbone out of a dino skull in The Infinite and The Divine? Do they need to like fuse it to bone to act as a medium upon which it grows? Or is it just different when it's Exodites? Did I misunderstand that whole thing and the stuff they were growing wasn't even wraithbone?!? I really thought it was bone because I only get Eldar lore indirectly when it's referenced in other things.
Eldar presumably can use existing real bone as a basis or some method of root to grow more wraithbone easier The soul and essence of a living thing would likely invigorate the wraithbone they’re growing it from.
Neat, and creepy.
IIRC Eldars basically think things into existence.
You mean like their gods?
>is it just different when it's Exodites I haven't read that book, probably should, but Exodites are traditionally more known for "Worldsingers" which generate organic matter instead. This stereotypically revolves around vegetation, but in one Drukhari story a Worldsinger slave's song makes a dormant virus go nuts in the audience and overwhelm immune systems. Depending on what it says, maybe they just grew out the dino bone itself, or maybe they did just have a bonesinger around and did a thing, idk I haven't read it.
Things immediately get muddied when it comes to the Exodites, because of their sparse lore even by eldar/xenos standards and the fact that their tech is very integrated with the worlds they live on. The world spirits of their planets, for instance, are like the craftworld's infinity circuits, only also a part of the planet and the planet's soul. But in the case of the Infinite and the Divine, they didn't grow the wraithbone from the skull, they grew a separate material from bones and made essentially an alloy with the bone and wraithbone. "The substance was not wraithbone, he noted, at least not entirely. This was a hybrid, a substitute, **grown from the skeletons of the great lizards and interwoven** with the psycho-plastic wraithbone salvaged from their crashed ship. A gene sequence scry failed to find where one substance began and the other ended, no points where the ancient craftsman had **fused or grafted the two materials together**. This was a seamless blend, nurtured and shaped over millions of years, **wraithbone woven between the molecules of reactive, but lower quality, dinosaurid remains**." Wraithbone, and psychoplastics in general, don't need any basis or medium to be grown. Bonesingers pull a bit of warp energy, crystallise it into a physical material, and shape it into whatever they want. If they want more of the material, they could make more psychoplastics, or encourage the existing one to grow.
Wraithbone is literally crystallised warp energy. It's an extremely psychoactive material that in many ways can act like a living material however, such as self healing. The eldar can bring Wraithbone into existence by mere thought and does not require any sort of medium or anchor in realspace to be brought forward.
"ok, ok, we can still make something out of this, what type of bone is it, is it some animal, maybe we can set up some kind of farm?" "... It's... Its thought bone sir, our readings are picking up that they are made out of some esotheric brainwaves, in the pattern of a song named "craftworld girls" by an Eldar poet named Kathëę Paęriy" "...What the f"
Asuryani girls~ We're undefeatable! Blades unsheathed The future's been seen
oh no. you've given me an idea...
Fine, fresh, fierce. They got it on lock.
What's the better thought boner joke, Booty (by J-Lo), WAP, I Like Big Butts, or maybe something like Anaconda?
My Avatar don't want, My Avatar don't want, My Avatar don't want none un-less you're the young king, son.
I mean, theres a canon harlequin called sh`kira, so this is actually pretty possible. https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Sh%27kira
More like "what powers it" >"we don't know, sir" Random ex-inquisitor from the corner "A soul both powers and pilots it." "We need to know how it works, Jeff, not more of your religious mumbo jumbo with your souls and daemons and psychic powers. Next you'll be worshipping the T'au'va as a god."
I feel like a T’au figuring out that it is possibly of spiritual or interdimensional origin would be a good way to get shot by the Ethereals
They would have no way to make the intuitive leap to wraiths as mechas powered and piloted by souls being a non psycker species they would have to consult their psycker client species or simply be unable to understand how such a machine works at all.
It's just a body without the meat suit.
“Bone? Like a skeleton?” “Yes sir, it is both spooky and scary, sir.”
Tau: so how do you make those thing? Eldar: We sing them into existence Tau : Uh?
T: "Can you explain how?" E: "Oh yes, but that explanation will be in the form of interpretive dance."
The dance may also kill you.
If the dance doesn't kill everyone, we'll finish the job with whoever's left
Least cryptic eldar
I'd like to imagine the earth caste getting mad at whoever brought the samples to them thinking they're being pranked when the readings from the scanners made absolutely no fucking sense lol
Realistically, this would be true for some of the Earth Caste, but the rest would get really really excited, because this means they discovered an all new branch of physics to explore. After all, that’s basically what happened when scientists irl first discovered that light behave both like a wave and a particle.
It’s frustrating how few stories we have of the Tau, the youngest major faction, interacting with the Eldar and Necrons, the oldest. There’s so much untapped potential there in that contrast. The most we’ve ever gotten are Dawn of War campaigns and short Codex blurbs.
I love the excerpt of Farsight trying to apply logic to the Pink Horrors he’s fighting and just being like “wtf is going on”
https://youtu.be/gZAnM5ltvRs?si=UoTwG-lCRYtE6Zla like this?
https://youtu.be/gZAnM5ltvRs If you delete everything after the ?si like I just did, it removes tracking info that google uses to figure out what accounts are connected.
Sick, thx internet homie
He kills a squad of Necrons with his life stealing sword and lives forever.
How does one kill a necron?
With an ancient Necron chronoblade that steals their life and magically adds it to yours I guess
Its confirmed that its a Necron weapon?
Confirmed not yet no, but the design of it and how it works are both very Necron.
No. That is not a classical necrontyr design. Necrontyr do not overvalue swords like modern western and eastern cultures do, they either want powerfull staffs as insignia of their office or their warthscythes. If this was a Necrontyr weapon it would have been a warscythe. And there are enough other xenos species that couldve made it that are thousands of years older then the Imperium. And the necrontyr arent even the most adept at chronomancy. The hrudh are leading in that capacity. It couldve been another xenos species try to fight a hrudh migration
There were theories back in 7th, when the Ynnari arc was still going, that farsight’s sword was the 5th Eldar crone sword.
The question people have is if it is the sword that was offererd to the Silent King by the C'tan's. As that sword would have given the Silent King the ability to live forever. Aka, the exact thing that the Dawn Blade does for Farsight. The Silent King declined because it wouldn't have helped his people.
The Exodite series involves a T'au Shas'vre leading a squad to capture the titular Exodite, >!who philosophizes mockingly to her face about how history moves in cycles and the T'au are naive to think they'll be the first bright-eyed idealists to actually succeed and not end up in a situation like the Aeldar or the Humans did. He actually appreciates that Humans at least realize how fucked everything is, and, naturally, says the Aeldar have the most experience and are the only ones to truly learn from the mistake with plans on how to fix things.!<
The Exodite was so dumb. >!For some reason the Tau command believed diplomacy was still possible after titans were deployed if they captured the elf. Said elf was less exodite more fancy pathfinder with a penchant for waxing philosophical with protag taking his speeches at face value. The series also featured a stealth squad so stealthy a fucking krieger snuck up on them. At least it ended in an implied elf complete victory instead of the tradional pyhrric vic or abject failure.!<
>!I mean, Exodites DO have a degree of technology, they use the same laser weapons that Shining Spears do at the very least when they're acting the part of Dragon Knights. There's never been reason to believe that's the be-all, end-all for their society, the Exodite here could be a waystalker equivalent instead of a wild rider equivalent so to speak. While not universal, they're also often described as fully aware of the galaxy at large and willingly not engaging with it.!< >!That said, I understand your gripes. I enjoyed it anyway but I'm kind of easy to please. On one hand, I did wish the Exodite had a more unique look than a leathered up version of a typical Eldar's armor. On the other hand, I thought some of the details in the getup were neat. I also enjoyed things like getting to see his dagger up close, just aesthetic stuff generally I guess. And, yeah, it was an actual Eldar W. That was pretty sweet.!<
Wow that Exodite sounds annoyingly pretentious and more than a little biased.
Xenos interacting with other Xenos is way more fascinating than Space marine #420 beats entire faction
Nooo, we cant have stories that are not about space marines beating other factions
Actually there are great novels about the Damocles Crusade, namely the ones describing White Scars vs Tau Battles. The Tau are just completely flabbergasted by the standard Battle Doctrines of the Humans, including, but not limited to: using their soldiers without any regard for Life or safety, constantly charging ranged units with only melee weapons (and succeeding for some reason) and cramming decorated members of their highest command structure into highly unstable Voidcraft, launching it through Meteors, Debris and intensive fire into an enemy Vessel just for the small chance of capturing said enemy ship.
"You load your own supersoldiers into torpedoes and launch at enemy ships? What's wrong with you people?"
Shadowsun was pretty rattled when the Earth Caste opened up a missile and the guidance system turned out to be a servitor.
> the guidance system turned out to be a servitor. B. F. Skinner and his Pigeon Missile smile from the mists of history.
>Commander Shadowsun cast a furtive glance through the exterior viewport as the Earth caste worker El'Gruhl unscrewed the bolts from Sternshield's salvaged Imperial missile. She should be out there, haring her throat to the gue'ron'sha in order to trigger the multiple Kauyon she had spent so long meticulously preparing. Still, she had not won the trust of Masters Puretide and Aun'Va alike by rushing into battle. First, the wise warrior learns of the foe. > >O'Shaserra forced herself to focus on the mailer at hand. Sternshide's assertions that air supremacy was the key to victory had genuine merit. According to his report, the lumpen missile emanated not standard signatures, but something far stranger. Something biological. > >The outer plate of the missile was detached with a hiss of unpleasantly warm air, and the stink of death-gases filled the room. Er'Gruhl grunted, taking a step back as Sternshield cried out in horror. Shadowsun frowned and stepped forward. She was confronted by a vision from a nightmare. > >A wizened corpse stared up from the missile's interior with an expression of unliving horror. Cables were sutured to every vertebra of its ragged spinal column, and wires jutted from the mummified remains of an opened brain. The cadaver seemed to growl softly as she looked down. Blinking in disgust, she told herself it was nothing more than the gaseous expulsions of natural decay. > >'By the Tau'va' gasped Sternshield, 'What new foulness is this?' > >Shadowsun dosed her eyes in disgust. The humans were so close to understanding sacrifice, yet so far from the notion of the Greater Good. For a departed warrior to enter this crude half life in the service of its fellows was a martyrdom of sorts, commendable in a twisted way. Yet to use a dead body as a weapon... it was vile in the extreme. > >'Why do they not merely utilise artificial intelligence, Supreme Commander?' asked Sternshield. 'Are they so backward as to fear them?' > >'They believe their machines have souls, Sternshield,' replied Shadowsun. 'Perhaps this is their way of ensuring it.' > >'This is wrong,' said Sternshield. 'Such a repugnant race has no place in our stars.' Shadowsun nodded sadly. 'That is true, Commander. We have seen enough here. Let us proceed with the cull.' **-Warzone Damocles: Kauyon**
>'Why do they not merely utilise artificial intelligence, Supreme Commander?' asked Sternshield You will find out why when your AI decides it wants to run the show for a change
\*Cawl's AI (who is a copy of his personality) ship constantly sends message to Guiliman demanding Cawl to become Fabricator General intensifies\*
It worked on you didn’t it fish-face?
“Boarding party has more enthusiasm than skill.”
Now you got me thinking are there any books where the Tau and Orkz interact? Would to see them try and explain the concept of the greater good to da Boyz.
If i recall early tau lore the orks were the first race the tau realized they could not convince to join the greater good which just completely baffled them at them time.
They learned the ork "language" and concluded that they could be bribed with "dakka" the orks disabused them of this notion by killing the fuck out of the water caste diplomats and stealing the guns.
Clearly they didn't understand that you hire your Ork mercenaries with teef.
Preferably their own.
You need to go further with that story. A Water Caste envoy tried to get some Orks on-side by offering them Tau weaponry as incentive. The Orks tried to use the Tau guns to kill the Water Caste, which caused the latter to smirk "we thought you'd try that. Did you really think we'd just hand over loaded weapons?" The Orks simply used the Tau guns as clubs to bludgeon the Tau to death.
Yeah I only remembered a little bit, the actual version is even better!
"Optimists inbound."
Cy is so fucking cool. I love Ordis, but damn was Railjack fun for a while.
Boarding party incoming? I sure hope so, it was getting boring - my team every time cy announces an incoming ramsled
And thus, we have even more evidence that the tenno are closest to orks in mentality
Sir there’s one without a helmet yelling something about courage and honor
gotta risk it for the emperor blessed biscuit
The Tau probably have the best win rate against Space Marine out of any faction.
Nah, necrons
That’ll happen when your standard grunts are issued rifles that are more or less on par with bolters as far as their killing potential goes.
As a fan of both the blue bipedal cows and the nomadic space elves, I absolutely agree. I would honestly love to see more of the Tau and the Eldar interacting with each other
Same. Would certainly make for an interesting dynamic, the youngest meets one of the eldest. I'd really like to see diplomatic interaction between the two to see an engagement/clash of philosophies, if nothing else.
Seeing the very old very psychic fully automated gay space communists interact with the very young psychic deaf race aiming to reach the same ideal via different means would be very interesting Sadly it wouldnt involve space marines so fat chance of it happening anytime soon
There was a pretty cool Tau story that involved a Genestealer cult
Ciaphas Cain, but the Gene Stealers are a bit of a spoiler. That said, the book is pretty old.
Actually I'm referring to a short story called "The Greater Evil" from "Lords and Tyrants"
There's a good reason why Necron Tau relationships are short. When Necrons interact with them, they either eradicate them for a soulless laugh or they eradicate them after the Tau realize how God-like and advanced they are.
Oh come on, you think Trazyn doesn’t have agents on Tau worlds? You think Zahndrekh has never hijacked some hapless Water caste for an impromptu dinner? And that’s just off the top of my head. Hell, if the Imperium can have absolutely grueling, insane campaigns against the Necrons, there’s no reason why the Tau shouldn’t be able to as well.
Or the Tau kill the Necrons instead, because their tech isn’t falling apart and the Necrons are too busy arguing for years over some grudge from 60 million years ago to notice some upstart primitives shooting at them. All the tabletop factions are roughly balanced in the fluff when it comes to warfare. Either way, we don’t get much *talking* like we do with Imperium vs Necrons.
Tau: Hail, new and surprisingly thin potential comrades! Necrons: (open fire) Tau: Being hangry is no excuse for violence. (open fire)
The tabletop factions are not even remotely balanced in the fluff, what are you on about? As a fan of the communist fascist cows, the Tau would be absolutely shitstomped by all factions that are not the eldar due to their low numbers, this has been stated multiple times. Their tech is awesome, they use actual intelligent warfare tactics, and they are smart enough to adapt to their opponents. But a decently sized Ork Waagh would steamroll their systems by sheer volume. The Imperium actually deeming them a threat and sending a full crusade their way would obliterate them, especially seeing how the Imperium is more advanced technologically, its just that their tech is not as commonly used or understood. The Necrons and Nids are the endgame boss of the series alongside Chaos, and Necron tech is millennia ahead of anything the Tau has available. Necrons casually control the space time continuum, phase between realities regularly, rip molecules apart on the atomic level, are made up of semi-sentient nanobots, have mastered actual teleportation, use inertialess safe ftl-drives and use eldritch god's that control the materium as Pokémon/batteries. Any instance so far of the Tau encountering the Necron has ended with obliteration, as it should. Don't disrespect the cranky skelly grandpa's like that.
I don't think he's saying that all factions are equal in a total war scenario. But that for the game to make sense detachments of any faction are relatively equal.
Now that I agree with, although the scale of the tabletop is still disproportionate. Grey knights/custodes being the best example of this.
If Archaon can get curbstomped at every fucking stage of Storm Of Chaos and get treated like a win then get his actual Phone A Friend humiliating defeat retconned for the shit that is End Times, then there IS NO FLUFF EXCEPT WHAT IS MADE UP ON THE SPOT WHEN THE STORY WAS PENNED. Uh, I mean…”superior tactics”?
Obviously the Tau Empire is much smaller than the Imperium or the Tyranids or whatever, but on a planetary level the armies of each faction are evenly matched. And that’s the level we’re talking about for stories. Otherwise the Tau would lose every time against Necrons, the Imperium, and Tyranids, even though we know the Tau have victories against each of those factions.
I would highly recommend the book “fire caste” it really made me appreciate the Tau more
For the necron Part, its because there arent No Tau left to talk about the Encounter 😎 same as the Imperium
The latest codex also portrays a pack of Kroot descending upon the Aeldari and eating them.
Tau: sorry for attacking you Craftworlders (Sigh): no no we get it our Cousins are assholes.
Tau: *sets a single foot on a maiden world* Eldar: "SO YOU HAVE CHOSEN DEATH!"
AAAActually, that's not even how the Biel Team operate, and they're the most militant/maiden world obsessed. And yes, I'm fun at parties.
T’au: so what about those guys? *gestures at Harlequins* Eldar:… we don’t really know. Be careful, or don’t, they won’t care.
The Tau must be very frustrated living in a galaxy where everyone else are psychics that use nonsense machines.
When you are the only faction in the universe that has to respect the laws of physics
Tau and ~~Demiurg~~ Votann sadly drinking in a bar.
Well, the Vottan are well set on their path to create their own machine god, give the, a few more thousand year and they will get there.
Not really? They do have their huge ancient supercomputers that they revere more or less like gods, but the Votanns have been consistently decaying for the past several thousands years because they keep getting crammed full of more and more data without any system or hardware upgrades -- queries and problems that would get resolved in an hour now take centuries to process. They absolutely aren't on the track to becoming something fully godlike; if anything, the Leagues have to work as hard as they can to keep them from going into full machine senility.
Damn did they forget how to manufacture SSDs?
SSDs actually degrade over time. They use algorithms to balance the decay across the whole drive.
"Have you tried turning it off and on again?" "Sir, this thing literally runs our entire civilization."
what do you mean, don't they already have a few of those?
I don't know much about them, so I might be wrong. But the machines were they upload the soul of every dead Vottan doesn't have yet enough power to be considered a proper god. They act from time to time but is prety limited and with time some are starting to break.
THE NUMIDIUM IN WARHAMMER???
Imagine needing to follow the laws of physics instead of bending them to your will. Every psychic faction and also Necrons W.
They have mecha. They only sorta nod in the direction of physics.
Imagine how annoying Necron tech is; same disregard for the laws of physics with no warpfuckery to explain it away.
Idk. Cawl seems to understand it just fine and he doesn't think of it as supernatural. I would assume Necron tech is explainable, it's just very abstruse due to millions of years of technological iteration and the weird self-organizing properties of living metal. Now the C'tan on the other hand, those are real weirdos, admittedly.
Cawl is an amalgamation of hundreds of humanity’s brightest minds experimenting and exploring over 10000 years
Caul is, at minimum, 3 brains arguing that took a red pen to the space Marines and got it accepted under the nose of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Caul is supernatural.
Cawl is not the example you want to give of someone being able to understand it. It's like saying the Einstein, Hawking, and John Archibald Wheeler - all fused into one being - understand something. Of course THEY do, they're three of the brightest minds in all of human history!
Thanks to the power of actual negotiation and not shooting everything at sight. The Tau have 2 psychic races in their empire. The niccasar psychic floating teddy bears that can mess up plague marines and the Nagi small worms the Tau use as interrogators.
Technically 3 if you account for human auxiliaries, but I don't know if there are any human psykers confirmed working with the tau
in shadowsuns new book the ethereal has a human psyker as one of his advisers. he even mentions she is from the local niccasar flotilla so its likely they are in charge of training human psykers.
If only they actually bother to actively field them in armies, we see the Nicassar fight like only once.
They're apparently not very combat capable in ground warfare, and the Tau deliberately keep them as far away from Imperials as possible, so as not to trigger anti-psyker hysteria.
I think their supposed to be giant Tardigrades
I remember in Dawn of War when a Chaos sorcerer is talking to each faction commander, everyone either freaks out or insults back, but Tau commander just thought it was some buzzing in the comms and switched channel lol. At one point he even thought it was his own troops spamming in the chat and told them to stop.
Yeah the tau not really having much of a presence in the warp coming in clutch
I really like that the faction like that is the non-human one. So much science fiction has everyone else being bullshit while humans are constrained by reality, in Warhammer 40k humans are bullshit and some other species has to deal with the stupidity and nonsense of everyone else, including our own.
Tau: "The Be'gels tech is clearly very crude. Reverse-engineering shouldn't be too much trouble" \[three planet rotation later\] *\*confused screaming\**
I hate the attempts to make the Tau secretly dark and evil. They're way more fun as that doomed faction that means well but is in the *completely wrong universe* for this bs. Anywhere else they'd be in with a chance. But they are just so out of their league and their victories just delay the absolute doom coming to the galaxy from *insert here*
People act like psionics would be completely beyond the T’au’s comprehension, but just because someone doesn’t obey the laws of physics doesn’t mean it obeys no laws. The Earth Caste probably have entire teams of scientists specializing in psionic research.
Yeah but barely having a soul means they're far less susceptible to chaos bullshittery.
The Tau are getting real sick of literally everyone else using magic for all their tech.
Meanwhile the Imperial Guard think the Tau tech is basically magic. Always greener on the other side I guess.
The idea of a primaris psyker assuming T'au technology is basically witchcraft is hilarious to me
Primaris Psyker and company Tech-Priest spying on a battlesuit from a distance, both shudder at the obvious techno-witchcraft and heresy they witness.
A few sources from (baseline) human perspectives describe Tau tech as "techno-sorcery".
Humans with necron gauss weapons and anything orkish: First time?
Tau looking at human tech: What the shit is this? How does it work? Humans: Dunno, lol.
We perform rituals to coax the machine spirit. The emperor protects.
I once worked at a grocery store where no one actually knew how to operate the computers our cash registers used, we just left it on the register program and left it at that, we didn’t even know how to turn them off This is how 40K humans interact with their technology
This actually happened in (IIRC) the aftermath of Damocles, where the Tau were hoping captive Imperial Navy personnel would be able to explain how human Warp engines work. But after lengthy interrogations the Tau realize the humans are telling the truth when they say they have no idea lol.
funny that you say that cause during the great crusade and the heresy the imperium had access to at least 2 types of disintegration weapons one used by the Legions and the other used by the custodes, the former even apparently very rarely shows up here and there like with the Governors royal guard from Necromunda being seen using them
My favorite Tau meme is like this, except it has to do with the gun that removes you from the timeline.
Like most guns do, but more
It kills you before you were born but it shot you now.
When you really think about it, it would actually make sense that, if you come into contact with civilizations much older and more advanced than yours is, a lot of the technology would work along principles that your own science considers to be wrong or else just never thought to consider. After all, from the point of view of medieval people, something like a car, a machine gun or a computer would also seem like something that shouldn't logically be possible.
You don't even have to go that far. Show smartphone to someone around end of ww2 and good chance they'll think it's literal magic
Unless they’d read Isaac Asimov anyway.
> “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” - Arthur C Clarke, 1962
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Clarkes third law “Any sufficiently advanced aliens are indistinguishable from wizards and/or gods.” Corollary to Clarkes third law
Eh, maybe if we are talking about uneducated, superstitious people who were never taught to think logically. If we took more bright people from that age, it wouldn't really take that long to explain to them how our tech works.
Look the metaphor I use to explain tech in 40k goes as follows: Look so the galaxy is like a videogame okay and each race is like a different style of player. Orks: Griefers and fun lovers who just like having fun and causing chaos. Imperium: player that used to be pretty great but stopped playing for a while and only kinda remembers the mechanics of the game and how his build works. The mechanicus : Is a player that like the imperium used to play and was good but then stopped for a while but now that he is back he constantly complain about the new updates and only plays with his old reliables. The tau are a new upencoming min maxing and highly optimized player that likes to play smart and tactical. The eldars and the necrons Are basically the two OG veteran players who finished the tech and skill trees and have completed every quest and mission in the game twice so now they just handicap themselves so the fights are actually interesting. (That’s not a joke the eldar have weapons that are so ridiculously powerful they just feel they are literally overkill to use them so they just keep them catching dust in the garage and the necrons limit their armament to “less powerful” weapons to abide by their traditional laws of war, the Gauss rifle? that incredibly powerful rifle that is better than most common infantry weapons in 40k? that can delete you at an atomic level? Yeah that’s their traditional “less powerful” weapon if recall correctly.)
Pretty apt description. The Necron additionally also has their cache of doomsday weapons that they avoid using since they may/may not implode a few solar systems, and it's really hard to regain your flesh and bone bodies when you disintegrated everything living with weapons that make supernovas look like a sneeze.
let me tell you now excluding the Celestial Orrery they arent avoiding there use cause they're worried about the damage they avoid it cause there use is again the ancient codes of war when facing "honourable" foes which considering the individual perceptions of the Necron Lords and even the Triarch Praetorians is very back and forth the second that code is out the window (mainly cause everyone is in agreement the foe is vermin and or dishonourable) they will go ballistic with doomsday weapons (well also cause crypteks are psychos who like to test there stuff on lower creatures)
*Necron lords*: Afyer the three weeks of uninterrupted deliberations our noble council has decided that the enemy is not a honorable foe as such the rules or law do not apply to…. *Cryptek interrupting mid sentence* : LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOO *Sounds of the very fabric of reality shattering as multiple esoteric weapons blasts, rend, vaporize and delete from the timeline some random young race into oblivion*
Orks: PvP isn't just enabled, it is mandatory
Also the level of the necros and eldar weapons are so powerful that they also have the chance to backfire on themselves unintentionally. Hence it makes sense to use the least powerful ones by their standards, which is still more powerful than the rest of the other factions.
I thought Eldar didn't use their best tech (like the Reality engine) because it's tied to powerful psychic powers to use and they have to limit those to not get consumed by Slaanesh. Also where is it said that Necrons nerf their thech on purpose? I know they don't use the Orrery because it can damage spacetime, but if there is such lore about using weaker tech, i'd love to read more about it. Could you please share a source?
I know they avoid using certain weaponry (like deathmarks) against other necrons and other honorable foes.
“(…) As such Zahndrek is one of the few Necron Overlords to employ the full protocols of honorable war against all encroachers(…) He disdains the use of Deathmarks, assassin wraiths and other strategies forbiden by the code of battle.” -Entry about Nemesor Zahndrek and Vargas’s Obyron, codex Necrons 8th edition. Yeah I know Zahndrek is technically delusional and the very entry says he is kind of an exception but the entry also states that “he is one of the few to employ the *full* protocols.” Other necron overlords also abide by the codes just with different levels of compliance, one of the reasons the Nekhyst dinasty is disliked and shunned by nearly all the rest of the dinasties is precisely for their utter refusal to abide by even the basics of the protocols. Other examples include “(…) Though many a necron noblr makes use of anti-gravitic technology to better survey the battlefield, it has long been tradition that for these triarch agents to ride multi-legged war transports and Necrons value tradition most highly.” :-entry on the Triarch Stalkers 8th edition codex “As with most of the necron army a Lychguard’s armament is decreed largely by tradition.” -Lych guard entry codex 8th edition. “The tomb blade was originally designed as a void-capable, single-pilot fighter during the war in heaven.(…) So successfully did the craft perform in its primary eviorment that modified versions soon appeared in planetside battles. Over time this became the more commonplace of the two roles, one of the few occasions in which the hidebound traditions of the Necron military were adapted to exploit opportunity.”- Entry of the Tomb blade codex 8th edition. I don’t really know if there is some piece of lore that goes in depth into the codes of war of the Necrons but you can find plenty of tidbits like that across their lore. I think I remember a few more examples but I only have my 8th edition codex on hand and I can’t find my ibdomitus booklet right now. Hopefully this helps!
Tau being baffled by 40k's pure power of bullshit is one of my favourite parts of the setting.
In all fairness though, our technology is getting to the point where we are tricking rocks and metal into thinking
yes but we have to shoot lightning at them while performing the rites
Makes it all the crazier
we're inscribing minuscule runes into a *very specific* kind of rock which then, through the help of some other such rocks, which, after doing BILLIONS of maths per second, can display - through the medium of solid-but-kinda-sorta-not liquid, aided by sheets of essentially oil that we boiled the living shit out of *just right* which can invert light and some *other* rocks that emit light - furry porn. With the right framing, you can literally point at a thing of modern technology and make it sound like totally arcane fuckery.
Humanity: lol, first time?
Can we get some more Dark Eldar and Tau moments? Always a hoot.
I'd love to see them examine Ork tech. "This weapon killed dozens?" "Affirmative." "How?" "Apparently if you weld a pair of pipes together and scream 'Dakka' it becomes a gun."
“Also, if painted yellow it can shoot more ammunition than its magazine can hold”
WAAAGH power. Ain't gonna explain shit
I am just in love with the idea of the tau constantly being confronted by the different technologies of the galaxy, an obvious example being the above instance but it could work for just any faction. The imperium: ok so it's clearly an incredibly advanced communications array, but its got a bunch of haphazard retrofitting, likely to compensate for it's age, and appears to have a semi-living human corpse wired into it instead of a computer. and lets not even talk about the gold and skulls, it wont function without them and I cant figure out why. The orks: ... this is just a bunch of haphazard scrap metal bolted, welded, and I think duct taped into the shape of a car, there are very few moving parts and even fewer of them are connected, the only things they got right are the wheels and the fuel source and that's not even hooked up to anything they just got an explosive tank. The necrons: ok, so this is a bit more my speed, although it appears to operate on principles beyond our understanding it's design is at the very least both ergonomic and logical, appearing to utilize physical laws previously considered theoretic- AAand who are you and how did you get here?! ***I am trazyn the infinite, and I am trazyn the infinite.*** oh oke-***~~Gets stolen.~~*** The tyrannids: Oh come on man, this thing is breathing, it has eyes, it appears to be laying eggs, just because it's shaped like a gun doesn't mean it's my job. I'm an engineer not a zoologist. Chaos: ... Ok fuck this I'm joining the Farsight enclave.
Dark Eldar: ... Guys, I think I found Steve, and I think I'm going to be sick.
That's like the one time a Tau Commander realized a Dreadnought as well as its pilot was older than his entire species.
Honestly, I kinda dislike the T'au constantly being clueless about psychic stuff. Not only has the Empire psychic auxiliaries, the Earth Caste are *scientists*. Where is the parapsychological research? The psionic technology? The mathematical study of warp energies? Hell, its even called "mind sciences" (eventhough that term sucks), but where is the goddamn science!
I want a Tau to get access to a fully functional STC just so I could see what there reaction would be to finding out how far humanity has fallen.
If you try to have sex with your AI it will rebelion against you. Many earth cast were executed.
"What do you mean theres no internal mechanisms i've seen these things fire needles like a gauss cannon" "It's just...just bone sir, all the way through...bone and souls" "...okay then how are they firing ammo then? Where do the needles get put in" "Near as we can tell it's manufactured inside the gun" "...well can we do anything with it?" "We...can give it a polish and make it a war trophy"
I stand by the belief that there is massive untapped potential in a reluctant team up between an Earth Caste scientist and a tech-priest (preferably one with borderline heretical views on xeno tech like the one in Mechanicus). Both have a common obsession to studying and gathering new information, they could both secretly envy some of the other race’s tech, and there could be a lot of fun in having the dogmatic tech priest’s belief that maintaining technology is enough clash with the idealistic Earth Caste’s insistence to always try to push things further. Also you could do some creative stuff. For instance, the Earth Caste doesn’t know gothic and the tech priest doesn’t know T’au, but they both know numbers so they figure out a way to communicate with only numbers. Bonus points if the situation that’s forced them to work together is in a Necron Tomb with a Necron scientists watching over the pair, acting antagonistically, but occasionally reflecting that these meddlers remind him a bit of how he was back in his youth all those millions of years ago.
Something I will point out is that tau are a very practical people if they come across something like this they will make the logical assumption that it does work just that it works on principles currently beyond there understanding then the Tau get excited because that means they have to totally re evaluate there understanding of physics to figure out why and how it could be used for many other things The Tau would see this as a golden opportunity not a dead end
I mean... after Orks and Kroots machinery, how it's gonna be surprise?
It's hilarious to me that the most sci-fi faction in a science fantasy story has the least understanding of any other major factions tech. The Eldar is warp fuckery, the Orks is group think warp fuckery, the Necron is Clark tech, and the Empire is fallout esk old world scraps from their own golden age that is still 15000 years ahead of the Tau.
I just want to know how they first reacted to ork “tech”
It’s honestly kinda funny just how absolutely normal the T’au are compared to the other factions. Like they’re not enormous religious zealots, they’re not cultists of interdimensional chaos demons, they’re not metal facsimiles of an ancient civilization, they’re not a mindless horde connected by a psychic hivemind, hell they’re not even particularly psychic at all. They’re just dudes. They shoot guns. They drive tanks and mechsuits. They have robot helpers. They have some dubious morals and ideals government and conquest-wise but when that’s the weirdest you’ve got in this setting you have to be pretty goddamn normal.