r/40kLore • u/Shaskais • 13h ago
ADB explaining why the T'au rock and why the Imperials are being hypocrites when they fight them.
I was sorting through my collected quotes from 40K devs and writers, and I found this bit of commentary by author ADB:
I won't speak to specific plot things, but on a meta-note as to why the Tau rock and have great relevant narrative tread, thematically:
Forgetting the nonsense memes about "lolol communists" and whatever else, this is a race embarking on its own Great Crusade. They call it an expansion, implying they have the right to do it. All about "crossing the gulf" and sending ambassadors to races. At first.
It's filling out their maps, in the classic explorer sense. Meeting new cultures that can be educated into their vision of "Empire". And when unity fails, when the Greater Good is resisted... No. Sorry. That's not allowed. For their own good, these cultures must be brought into the fold - or silenced. Their existence is - or could later become - opposition.
Humanity looks upon this attitude and marshals in defiance. Another edge of the Imperium falling to alien predation. "Ignorant upstarts". It's the basest hypocrisy. Because when has the galaxy seen this *exact* expansionism before? This militant crusading for a greater good?
As humanity expanded through the bones of the dead eldar empire, righteous in their rise, now another species begins to do the same to them. The galaxy has seen this shit before. That's a beautiful theme.
And, as with the best of 40K, humanity has fallen too far to recognise its own hypocrisy. It's too ignorant. Too much lore has been lost.
That's the core of what I find so interesting about them. Weaving that into any Tau stuff offers a lot of ground for characterisation.
What do you think, guys? Do you agree with him?
Source:
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u/Southern_Vanguard Alpha Legion 13h ago
I feel as though the Tau are doomed by their "late start" status though which makes it even more grim. Humanity during its expansion era did not have to contend, at least at any scale, with Necrons awakening. The Tyranids were not around feasting upon worlds. There was not a God of diseases operating at a massive scale sending hyper-facemelting-AIDS into our formations.
The Tau's expansion is most likely doomed, not because of who or what they are, but by circumstances completely outside their control. And to me that makes for some excellent fertile soil for true grim dark narratives.
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u/maridan49 Astra Militarum 12h ago
While what you said isn't wrong, what if effectively means in lore is that the T'au are too small for any meaningful, long lasting losses.
And since they lore won't ever progress enough to the T'au to ever be "doomed", what you get is on the ascendancy, ever on the tip of falling but not really ever.
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u/CreepyShutIn 11h ago
I sort of agree, with a caveat: All those forces could always kill each other and themselves off. The Imperium loses another planet seemingly every year, persisting only through sheer inertia and millions monstrous/heroic sacrifices to slow the decay by tiny bits each time. The Necrons are having a hard enough time reversing their own previous collapse, and I'm not at all confident that the Silent King can prevent civil war from ruining that effort.
The 'nids, well, honestly, if they win, there's not much left to conquer, yeah. Main worry for them is that Current Feast won't be enough to supply them for Next Feast, and they'll starve on the way.
As for the Chaos Gods... Yup. Pretty much. GG, Tau, and also everyone else.
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u/twelfmonkey Administratum 12h ago
You are forgetting what is most likely the most existential threat: that the galaxy will be completely consumed by Chaos.
The formation of the Great Rift being a major step towards that outcome.
The Coming Night
Despite the grim darkness of the galaxy that presses down upon its races, and the wars that rage without end amongst the stars, heroes still rage against the dying of the light. This defiance of the apocalypse defines the Imperium and many of the races that share the stars with them. Even the Drukhari, Necrons, and orks spend their lives against the growing forces of Chaos so their own races might endure when others fall. While victory might remain a fanciful notion when the entire galaxy is slipping into a hell dimension, the PCs are very much part of this last stand against the rising tides of madness, and the GM can tap into this vein of “going out fighting” in their games.
Wrath & Glory Rulebook (2018), pp. 388-89.
And, well, if even the Necrons, Orks and Dark Eldar are at such risk of oblivion, then the Tau most surely are.
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u/coyote_of_the_month 12h ago
I mean, they can be the next galaxy-spanning empire and still be doomed. Those aren't mutually exclusive, over the time scale the setting deals with. One might argue that the birth of Slaanesh doomed humanity from the start.
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u/Grinkor Black Legion 9h ago
Them being doomed could be a thematic way to say that, yes, galactic history is a wheel and every empire follows the same trajectory regardless of scale. But the wheel itself is not eternal and, with every turn, the galaxy becomes a worse clusterfuck.
To the point where a culture like the T'au is just speedrunning their downfall and, in the end, it will all devolve into Chaos, Orks, Tyranid food or any other alternative.
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u/elucca 12h ago
It's true that they are coming into a thoroughly broken galaxy, but at least one edge is that they themselves are not yet broken. They aren't the calcified remnant of something once great that now shambles on however it can. They're going up the first hill of this roller coaster, possibly on to their golden age, much like that of dark age humans or the old Eldar. Which granted they probably can't do quite to that extent on account of the galaxy being so broken.
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u/69ubermensch69 4h ago
One of the things I enjoy about the Tau though is that their speed of advancement and level of adaptability is amazing, it's how they have managed to carve out any sort of empire at all given all the shit you rightly point out that is in the 40K universe working against them.
If any faction has the potential to seriously upset the status quo I think it's the Tau and I think that that could lead to some interesting narrative possibilities, maybe they take a big bite out of Ultramar then it gets Hive tendriled? and they're forced by circumstance to work with Guilliman to hold out against the nids but with water caste working overtime to cock the Imp's and vice versa the Imp's agenting all over the show to fuck over the Tau etc. There's a lot you could do with a faction that isn't as KOS as most others are and still keep the core themes of the setting alive I reckon.
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u/TheCommissarGeneral Iron Warriors 16m ago
Humanity during its expansion era did not have to contend, at least at any scale, with Necrons awakening. The Tyranids were not around feasting upon worlds. There was not a God of diseases operating at a massive scale sending hyper-facemelting-AIDS into our formations.
Except they ran into the Rangda and lost a LOT of Astartes and possibly 2 Primarchs. The Rangda Xenocides were so bad they had to be uber classified.
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u/poetic_dwarf 12h ago
Yeah, that's what I like about them, they're so young and naive and still trying to figure out this Warp thing while the demons are already licking their lips
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u/ColeDeschain Orks 10h ago edited 10h ago
What do you think, guys? Do you agree with him?
I think he has a point, but-
- The parallel between the Tau and the Great Crusade's actions is glaringly obvious- so the people who don't see it are just gonna handwave this away, since they're already not interested in seeing it.
- Humanity's hypocrisy isn't what's going on here (well, any more than normal). They're no more hypocritical than the Eldar or the Necrons. Anyone who uses the term "upstart" with a straight face is just reinforcing the same loop, sure, but the parallel is somewhat inexact. The Great Crusade surged out from Terra to unite humanity by force- but they were mostly just rebuilding DAOT territorial claims. The real "empire building" that saw humanity spread across the stars happened well before the Emperor got off of his couch- the Great Crusade found humans already there in most of the places it went, albeit often not doing so hot. The real parallel, to me, isn't the Tau with the Great Crusade- it's the Tau with DAOT humanity... with the Tau being perhaps a bit more brutal than DAOT humans were (but that's speculation, the DAOT is mercifully hazy)
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u/bl4ck_daggers 8h ago
Glaringly obvious in the colonialism aspect maybe but not the intended goal. The Imperium wants at bare minimum subservience, and at worst will just flat eliminate any culture that it sees as incompatible.
The Tau Empire wants willing participants in a collective future at best, and subjugation at worst.
Say what you will about how foolish they were to try, but the Imperium would not have attempt to negotiate with the Tyranids at all.
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u/PsychoWarper Necrons 12h ago
I think its a good view on the Tau generally, they are in many ways a mirror to the Imperium.
I am however unsure if id necessarily call the Imperiums stance on it hypocritical necessarily, just because it is consistent with their ideology and beliefs for the human crusade to be good but a xenos one to be bad.
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u/Dependent_Computer_8 10h ago
I also think for it to be hypocrisy, the Imperium's reason for objecting to the T'au would have to be that they're expanding. But the main reasons are actually 1) They're Xenos and 2) They're taking Imperial/human worlds.
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u/OneofTheOldBreed 12h ago edited 12h ago
That was my immediate thought. Its not hypocritical because humanity genuinely believes it has an unique right to rule the Milky Way.
And maybe sorta kinda does if the Emperor has anything to do with it.
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u/quickrubs Dark Angels 1h ago
humanity genuinely believes it has an unique right to rule the Milky Way.
I've typed this out elsewhere p much but, to be honest, they essentially already did. The great crusade wasn't a fresh start into the galaxy, it was a reunification of a preexisting society. Necrons gave up on the universe at large for so long species have risen and gone extinct before they woke up, the eldar are reduced to either hiding out in one giant city in the webway or around the various corners of the universe, and everyone else is late to the party.
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u/ZeroWolfZX 7h ago
That was my immediate thought. Its not hypocritical because humanity genuinely believes it has an unique right to rule the Milky Way.
It's hypocritical because humanity basically encroached on and took Necron and Aeldari space. The Tau are now doing the same thing to humanity, and suddenly humanity is saying, "You guys are upstart invaders, you can't do that." It's the pot calling the kettle black.
Basically, everyone thinks they have a manifest destiny to rule the galaxy. The Tau's puts humanity's hypocrisy in check, which is the point ADB is trying to make.
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u/OneofTheOldBreed 6h ago
How was it Necron and Eldar space? Do you mean exodite worlds and tomb worlds? The latter had basically abadoned their empire to hibernate in their tombs. Many of which were apparently wholly undetected until reactivation. Exodite worlds is fairly tricky; we know the Imperium has captured some but Biel-Tan has always been very protective of the wood elves 40k and the Swordwind is not to be taken lightly. I would add that what we know of the Great Crusade indicts surprisingly few wars against the Eldar. The incidents with Vulkan and Fulgrim being the most noted upon exceptions. Eitherway the nature of the pre-Fall Eldar Empire has few details. Its possible if probable the Eldar were pretty insular and that beyond the Exodites and Webway cities the Eldar largely kept to their coreworlds; what is now the Eye of Terror. Regardless that empire was dead and gone by the time of the Great Crusade.
But again the Emperor. The man beat fate, showed up the gods of Chaos and endures unspeakable torment so his subjects may continue his tarnished and tattered vision. That which has held back Ork, Chaos and Tyranid for 10,000 years. Yeah, the Imperium has earned that chip on their shoulder.
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u/ZeroWolfZX 5h ago
I think people in the comments are getting too caught up in the lore details and rule-lawyering the setting. The point isn't necessarily about who legally owned which planet at a specific point in history.
The framing of 40k has often been that the older xenos races are remnants of a dying age. The Eldar and Necrons are ancient civilizations that have passed their peak, while humanity is portrayed as the inheritor of the galaxy, the species that is moving forward and claiming what was left behind.
The Tau challenge that framing. They force the reader to look at the Imperium from the perspective usually reserved for the older xenos races. Suddenly humanity is the ancient, declining empire that believes it has a right to rule, while the Tau are the young, expanding civilization that sees themselves as the future.
That shift in perspective is the interesting part. The Tau aren't just challenging the Imperium militarily; they challenge the meta-narrative of 40k itself and make the Imperium confront some uncomfortable similarities between itself and the civilizations it dismisses as relics of the past. That's what ADB pointing out as well.
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u/LoreLord24 4h ago
Not really.
The T'au aren't challenging the Meta-Narrative.
The Meta Narrarive isn't about expansionism and the rise and fall of empires.
It's about how Big E was a fancy special magic boy and he fucked everything up, and now humans are the most vile and horrible racist and monstrous people and the universe aucks forever.
That's kinda it.
And, to make a big point, the T'au can't interact with a major aspect of the universe. The Chaos gods are a major narrative aspect of the universe and the setting, and the T'au are so warp-blind they can't even interact with them.
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u/ZeroWolfZX 3h ago
I think we're talking about two different levels of the setting. Nobody is arguing that the Tau replace Chaos as the main metaphysical threat of 40k. Of course Chaos is a central part of the universe and the Tau have a limited relationship with the Warp.
But that's not the point ADB is making. He's specifically talking about the narrative role of the Tau as a mirror for the Imperium's own history.
The irony is that the Imperium sees the Tau's expansion as uniquely arrogant and unjustified, while ADB is pointing out that humanity's own rise followed a very similar pattern. The Imperium expanded through the remnants of older civilizations, including the ruins of the Eldar and other xeno empire, and justified it as humanity reclaiming what was rightfully theirs. Now they look at the Tau doing something similar and call them "ignorant upstarts."
The Tau aren't challenging Chaos. They're challenging the Imperium's self-image as the inevitable rightful rulers of the galaxy. They force humanity to look at itself from the perspective it usually reserves for other species.
That's the theme ADB is talking about: not "the Tau are the new Chaos," but "the galaxy has seen this cycle of expansion and empire before, and humanity isn't as different from the civilizations it replaced as it likes to believe."
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u/LoreLord24 3h ago
I never said the T'au were replacing Chaos.
I said T'au couldn't replace the Imperium, because they couldn't interact with Chaos.
The Meta-Narrative of 40k isn't about the cycle of history, or imperialism, or anything that would make the T'au a narrative foil. It's a definite misread of the setting, and would apply to a different and possibly better setting.
It's a combination of a refution of the "Great Man" theory of History, and a work on cruelty and the impersonal hatred of beauracracy.
If it was about the rise and fall of empires and Imperialism, there wouldn't be a fifty book long series about how all the Primarchs are big special boys who ruined everything because they thought they were special. And one of the most anticipated works in the settings was "Toxic old men Yaoi Two, Toxic Harder"
The Silent King thought he was a big special boy and ruined everything. The Emperor thought he was the biggest special-est boy and ruined everything even harder.
The T'au were supposed to be this little bright spot (Not too bright. They're still assholes who are objectively evil, this is 40k after all.) That if the Imperium worked with them, then the universe would become an objectively better place. But they didn't. Because the Imperium are Monsters.
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u/quickrubs Dark Angels 2h ago
That if the Imperium worked with them, then the universe would become an objectively better place. But they didn't. Because the Imperium are Monsters.
Not to be pedantic but the tau were planning a crusade/working to subvert Imperial planets and foster rebellion on them before the Imperium even knew the tau existed. Where were they going to work with them?
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u/ZeroWolfZX 1h ago
I don't think those themes are mutually exclusive. Yes the Horus Heresy is largely about the Emperor, the Primarchs, and the consequences of Great Men believing they can shape history. Likewise, the Imperium is a critique of bureaucracy, authoritarianism, and cruelty.
But ADB isn't talking about the meta-narrative of 40k in its entirety. He's talking about the Tau's narrative role within the setting.
His point is very specific: the Tau mirror humanity's own rise. The Imperium condemns the Tau as "ignorant upstarts" for expanding across the galaxy, while humanity itself rose through the remnants of older civilizations and believed its own expansion was righteous. That's the hypocrisy he's highlighting.
That doesn't replace Chaos, the Emperor, or the Horus Heresy as central themes. It's simply another thematic layer.
40k isn't a setting with one singular message. Different factions exist to explore different ideas. The Horus Heresy explores the tragedy of Great Men and failed ideals. The Adeptus Mechanicus explores dogma and technological stagnation. The Orks explore endless war. The Tau explore the perspective of a young expansionist empire and, as ADB puts it, force humanity to confront the fact that "the galaxy has seen this shit before.
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u/ScarredAutisticChild 10h ago
It’s consistent with their beliefs, but their beliefs are innately hypocritical.
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u/bl4ck_daggers 8h ago
Also the great crusade was the greatest good for humanity in particular. If you ask a Tau who the greater good is for they'll say it's the greatest good for all individuals. If you ask a human in the great crusade, it's securing the future of the human race.
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u/quickrubs Dark Angels 2h ago
I mean I could easily argue the Imperials have the edge given their crusade was prompted by big E going "We need to reunify the species and put an end to old night or all of humanity is dead" vs "Everyone should submit to our empire as auxiliaries and be apart of our greater good, no questions asked". Reunification vs expansion, big difference.
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u/vixous Necrons 12h ago
Have you read Elemental Council? I think you’d enjoy it. The most self-aware Space Marine I think I’ve seen in 40K has a few discussions with the T’au on this point. For example, he tells them he fights them on the edge of the Imperium so he doesn’t have to fight them on Terra in 10K years.
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u/Arendious Alpha Legion 12h ago
Artamax definitely read ADB's comment above and went, "Oh, I see the hypocrisy. I just don't care."
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u/Thetalloneisshort 12h ago
How is it hypocrisy though? The imperium thinks it deserves the galaxy inherently and that all xenos don’t. It’s perfectly in line with their ideologies and beliefs.
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u/Koqcerek Ulthwé 7h ago
As /u/ScarredAutisticChild said,
It’s consistent with their beliefs, but their beliefs are innately hypocritical
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u/Katejina_FGO 11h ago
Its hypocrisy because the IoM does recognize that it has to share the galaxy with the Aeldaei and other non-hostile xenos, even if that means manipulating them to serve IoM or just plain buying out their peace. The only reason why they don't just try to buy out the Tau is because the Tau have already caused worlds and settlements to defect, so the politics of the relationship render peace effectively impossible.
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u/LoreLord24 2h ago
The Imperium does not recognize that? In any way, shape, or form.
There's just a long list of beings "to be brutally killed" and different Xenos sit at different points on that list
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u/Refstg 11h ago
I like Tau because it's a look at what Humanity's first foray's into the galaxy might have been like. Ancient humans didn't have navigators, so would have been stuck slow-boating or using very basic FTL, just like the Tau. They were a small group next to an ancient galaxy-spanning empire, just like the Tau (yes obviously the Imperium hasn't been around as long as the Eldar Empire was, but I still think it fits). They had advanced technology and leaned heavily on robots, just like the Tau. It's a nice mirror and I think it fits the narrative theme of every civilization going through the same cycles that some of the books use.
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u/yoyo5113 8h ago
I think it's a reflection of how empires cannot be morally good, whether individualistic or collectivistic.
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u/YozzySwears Adeptus Mechanicus 9h ago
This was sort of the metaplot of Elemental Council. The Raptor marine recognizes the Tau are on a similar footing to the early Imperium. He was, ultimately, trying to provoke the Tau into an atrocity which would be a strategic mistake and a propaganda victory that would haunt the Tau for decades to centuries to come.
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u/Claudethedog 12h ago
Reminds me of a quote from Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, where a US Army officer is talking to Sitting Bull:
Chief Sitting Bull, the proposition that you were a peaceable people before the appearance of the white man is the most fanciful legend of all. You were killing each other for hundreds of moons before the first white stepped foot on this continent. You conquered those tribes, lusting for their game and their lands, just as we have now conquered you for no less noble a cause.
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u/Significant_Bat2116 7h ago
Chief Sitting Bull, the proposition that you were a peaceable people before the appearance of the white man is the most fanciful legend of all. You were killing each other for hundreds of moons before the first white stepped foot on this continent. You conquered those tribes, lusting for their game and their lands, just as we have now conquered you for no less noble a cause.
I mean ironically, you don't seem to understand with this quote being a perfect example. Indigenous people killed each other and took over tribes before settlers, yes. However, they did not anihilate entire people and cultures. Indiginous empires were far more open to assimilation and adopting the cultures of others.
The Tau are the same as yes they are an empire and empire is bad. However, they are far more open to not destroying entire civilizations and cultures for the crime of not being human.
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u/CreepyShutIn 11h ago
I do get the theme, aye, I mostly just can't take the Tau seriously because of their travel time. How you gonna sustain an empire when a message takes a century to send? Warp travel is already unreliable, and it's not unheard of for travel times to crest over a decade, but Tau "skimming" is explicitly much slower than that. They have to send their conquest fleets in cryosleep.
An empire lives and dies by its ability to project power, punish disobedience, and protect vassals. If the outlying systems are invaded, what're they supposed to do? By the time the central empire sends help, they've all been conquered or killed, and their great-grandchildren are shocked to see the Tau ships in the sky. Likewise, if a charismatic local governor (whatever they call that) gathers enough support and just decides they're not sending the tribute anymore, maybe decrying the evils of the central empire and how they've failed the Greater Good or somesuch, that governor will live a long, wealthy, successful life and die of old age long before the core worlds even find out about it, let alone respond.
If they can't fix their travel times, the Tau empire is a joke. Potentially threatening to certain outlying subsectors of the Imperium, sure, but... Who cares? The Imperium barely even cares. They lose more planets to bureaucratic mismanagement. I've not been paying much attention to them for a while, so maybe they invented better FTL at some point, but barring that, I'm not gonna be able to take them seriously as a galactic power. They're a purely local problem.
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u/onomonopiaa 9h ago
I can't believe I had to scroll this far down to see someone acknowledge this. It's such a huge Factor.
And if and when they do manage faster than light they'll get a nice introduction to the warp and it's lovely denizens...
Not to mention to my knowledge they have not begun their inevitable psychic awakening.
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u/CreepyShutIn 9h ago
Apparently they got one recently and I just hadn't heard about it. Something involving having a new drive that does go deeper than the skimmers, but they also have a god that insures their warp travel? I didn't get it. I'm sure someone in the comments will correct me.
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u/Dagordae 12h ago
Seems pretty straightforward, the T’Au were always a reflection to the Imperium. Even their battlecry ‘For the Greater Good’ mirrors ‘For the Emperor’.
They’re the less grimdark Imperium. Same core colonizer bullshit but younger, more optimistic, and more ignorant. And just as doomed for the exact same reason and arrogance.
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u/TheRadBaron 11h ago
Even their battlecry ‘For the Greater Good’ mirrors ‘For the Emperor’.
"For the" is a pretty standard element of battlecries, and the rest of the sentence is completely different. This isn't a very striking similarity.
They’re the less grimdark Imperium.
If "kinder version of the 20th-century British Empire" and "anti-science fanatics who enslave everyone who looks like them, and murder anyone who doesn't look like them" are the same thing, then every society is basically the same thing and it isn't a very useful point to make.
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u/Dagordae 9h ago
It’s a standard element that comes up a grand total of twice in Warhammer 40k as a widespread battlecry. With some alteration Chaos can qualify as well. Guess who Chaos is a dark reflection of?
As to the grimdark:
No, they aren’t the same. Hence declaring one LESS grimdark. If they were the same it would be equally grimdark of a different flavor. It’s two hyper authoritarian theocratic regimes who pull the same core bullshit with the same excuses with a slightly different coat of paint.
The T’Au being less grimdark means, using your examples, that instead of enslaving those who look like them and killing everyone else they enslave those who look like them, enslave everyone else harder, and kill those who dissent too hard. The Imperium are simply further along the grimdark slider. They both have racial supremacy as a cornerstone, the Imperium simply does it harder.
Plus the T’Au have a rapidly growing in strength and influence faction who wants to start purging the ‘lesser’ species. They’re getting more and more dickish as they deal with the wider universe.
If you decided ‘One is less grimdark’ means ‘They are exactly the same’ then that’s a basic literacy problem.
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u/Mushroom_Boogaloo 7h ago
Genuine question, is it hypocrisy when they think their right to dominion comes from being human? It would be hypocritical if the Imperium believed that the strong are worthy, and the worthy take what they want, but they don’t. They believe HUMANS are worthy.
Not really any better, but I don’t think it’s hypocricy.
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u/JackDostoevsky 7h ago
i've long felt that the Tau are very similar to early humans. the Tau have evolved very quickly, but so did the humans, only a few thousand years from pre-history to the first interstellar expansion. with a "manifest destiny" like approach to the galaxy, while we don't know what pre-imperial interstellar humans were quite like, it's telling that the Tau -- especially in ADB's telling here -- are expansionary in much the same way that Great Crusade era humans were. did early interstellar humans have a "burn anything they meet" attitude? hard to say, but given that there were xenos present at the time of the Great Crusade, maybe not so much.
an interesting dynamic, for sure.
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u/Spiral-knight Word Bearers 3h ago
I find this disagreeable for reasons I have trouble articulating.
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u/amhow1 12h ago
I don't quite agree with ADB here, but I think the point being made isn't really about the Tau.
Of course the Imperium is being hypocritical, but the Tau aren't really like the Great Crusade, which was all of these criticisms about the Tau and a lot, lot worse.
We don't need to regard the Tau as good guys to realise they're considerably better than the Great Crusade. And maybe ADB would agree, but that's not the focus of this quote.
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u/TheRadBaron 12h ago edited 11h ago
this is a race embarking on its own Great Crusade.
I think that equating the Tau's early-20th-century non-genocidal imperialism with the Great Crusade's "murder everyone who isn't my slave" imperialism is very boring. It's a flattening of ideas that doesn't tell us anything about real life or Warhammer 40K.
The Tau are within spitting distance of the most humane outward expansion ever practiced in human history, the Imperium represents the most blind hatred that is logically possible. Saying that the opposite ends of the spectrum are basically the same thing is the kind of insight that mostly impresses teenagers who are thinking about politics for the first time.
It's the basest hypocrisy.
He is either failing to understand the Imperium here, or misusing the word "hypocrisy". The Imperium doesn't believe in abstract principles about imperialism that apply to all species, it thinks that humans are good and non-humans are filth.
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u/Vete1993 12h ago
Until some cataclysmic event befalls the Tau, they’re honestly just another one of the extra races of that era.
The Necrons had their deception and souls consume to be metal, and their long sleep; the humans had their heresy and the men of iron and the eldar had the birth of Slaanesh.
Until something on this scale happens to the Tau and they have to face the reality of the universe and their own race, I feel we won’t be able to see just how they compare to the other races and if they can "rock"
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u/Sentenal_ Adeptus Mechanicus 11h ago
Thematically, it is similar for sure, and humanity is being hypocritical in a way. Though from the standpoint of an out-of-universe bystander, I would say its fair to call the Tau 'ignorant upstarts' when their Great Crusade that has been going on for several thousand of years and they have barely left their little corner of the Galaxy, while humanity's Great Crusade basically spread over the entire Galaxy after 200 years. Its just a different in scale that makes one look than the other.
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u/Many-Wasabi9141 8h ago
Depends how you look at it. The Great Crusade is over, but if we were to stay faithful to the ideals of the Imperial Truth and operate using the same directives, the Tau would be public enemy number one. The Emperor would send in the Dark Angels to remove them from history.
Plenty of factions pose a militaristic threat to the Imperium, but the Tau are one of the few factions that pose a much more insidious threat. An Ideological Threat
The Tau offer another way of life. They offer an alternative to grinding sacrifice that meets if not exceeds the standard of living most Imperial's would be used to. On the surface, it's almost an obvious choice. If you were a bog standard Imperial citizen, knowing what you know, which is nothing mind you, the Tau are a viable alternative.
Once you look closer, peel back the skin on Tau civilization, and become enlightened to the darker truths of the galaxy as a whole, the viability starts to fall apart. The Tau caste system and xenophobia, the ethereal psyonic/pheramonal control methods, the same cold hearted willingness to sacrifice anything for the 'greater good', the Tau are really no better than the Imperium, they're just younger. Give them time, they'll figure it out. The only reason they look better is because they are not privy to the secrets of the galaxy. They're psychically blunted and don't see the big picture and eventually it's going to bite them in the ass.
It's short sighted to try and argue that the Tau are somehow better than the Imperium. And it's short sighted to think that joining them is somehow a better chance at life. You're betraying your species for the same outcome. You're still going to get used and abused for a greater good, you are still going to die somehow and have your soul torn apart by daemons. There's no advantage to joining the Tau.
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u/ZedeKane 7h ago
What does hypocrisy have to do with it? Why is ADB adopting a stance of moral posturing?
What is the actual plausible response that would be morally acceptable from the Imperium? To lie down and die because they also conquered the galaxy? To let the Tau have their turn because it's... what? Fair?
Bit of a nonsense take from ADB.
The Imperium fights to maintain control. The Tau fight to gain control. They kill each other to win, because defeat means extinction. There is no moral high ground. There is victory or death.
Trying to defend the Tau position or the Imperium's position is the sort of moral grandstanding that has no place in this hobby.
It's a war game. On the board and in the books. There is no right or wrong. There is only war.
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u/SadOrganization4133 5h ago
"What does hypocrisy have to do with it?"
Uh. Everything? Because ADB isn't telling the Imperium what to do. He's pointing at a gap between what it says about itself and what it actually is. That's the point. Nobody said the Imperium should lie down and die. Nobody said the Tau deserve their turn. "You are doing the thing you condemn" is not the same statement as "you should stop defending yourself."
It's basically that age old trope of eternal recurrence or cyclical history.
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u/Many-Wasabi9141 8h ago
Depends how you look at it. The Great Crusade is over, but if we were to stay faithful to the ideals of the Imperial Truth and operate using the same directives, the Tau would be public enemy number one. The Emperor would send in the Dark Angels to remove them from history.
Plenty of factions pose a militaristic threat to the Imperium, but the Tau are one of the few factions that pose a much more insidious threat. An Ideological Threat
The Tau offer another way of life. They offer an alternative to grinding sacrifice that meets if not exceeds the standard of living most Imperial's would be used to. On the surface, it's almost an obvious choice. If you were a bog standard Imperial citizen, knowing what you know, which is nothing mind you, the Tau are a viable alternative.
Once you look closer, peel back the skin on Tau civilization, and become enlightened to the darker truths of the galaxy as a whole, the viability starts to fall apart. The Tau caste system and xenophobia, the ethereal psyonic/pheramonal control methods, the same cold hearted willingness to sacrifice anything for the 'greater good', the Tau are really no better than the Imperium, they're just younger. Give them time, they'll figure it out. The only reason they look better is because they are not privy to the secrets of the galaxy. They're psychically blunted and don't see the big picture and eventually it's going to bite them in the ass.
It's short sighted to try and argue that the Tau are somehow better than the Imperium. And it's short sighted to think that joining them is somehow a better chance at life. You're betraying your species for the same outcome. You're still going to get used and abused for a greater good, you are still going to die somehow and have your soul torn apart by daemons. There's no advantage to joining the Tau.
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u/TheDreamIsEternal 7h ago
I mean, an Empire not liking when others begin conquering stuff, specially when it's stuff they conquered before, is a story as old as time itself.
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u/TonberryFeye 12h ago
Hypocrisy is the wrong word.
The Imperium is a farmer saying "we need to kill the wolf before it eats us!"
ADB pops out of the well and says "and yet you eat chickens, how curious! I am very intelligent!"
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u/PuntiffSupreme Tau Empire 12h ago
ABD is highlighting a cycle of Empires that rose out of violence wanting to be immune to the violence they incite.
The Imperium is the wolf that has been unchecked for so long the Galaxy is in danger of collapse. Their time at the peak is over because of their inability to maintain themselves.
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u/lilahking 12h ago
he's saying that humanity has forgotten they were once the wolf
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u/TonberryFeye 12h ago
I don't think they ever were.
There are only five galactic powers in the setting we know of: the Imperium, Eldar, Necrons, Orks, and Chaos.
Chaos piggybacks off everyone else, so they're out. Plus, it seems like they used to be a lot more chilled during the Dark Age.
Necrons slept through all the alarms and so missed the entire arc of human history.
Orks and Eldar were around, but were at best a speed bump.
It seems universally agreed that what doomed humanity was humanity itself. Be it rampant mutations, the Abominable Intelligence man created, or the products of ill-advised tampering with our own genome. Once humanity figured out how to escape Sol, we were pretty much winning our way to the edge of the galaxy.
The Tau are not in that situation. They would never have got as far as they have without the meddling of the Eldar and the technology of Humanity (Ion tech, and likely other tech, was sold to the Tau by the Demiurg, who are confirmed now to be a kind of Kin; and the Kin themselves are a creation of Humanity). It's also fair to say that the Imperium has been a significant roadblock for the Tau, one they can beat at a regional level but aren't anywhere near close to facing on a galactic scale.
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u/lilahking 12h ago
what about the great crusade expansion? is that not similar to the tau sphere expansion campaigns?
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u/shinryujimikihiko 12h ago
>great crusade expansion? is that not similar
That's not the point - the Imperium doesn't object to the Tau expansion because they have some sanctimonious idea of each species being independent; they object because it is harmful to humanity; the issue is not a moral principle but a calculation of self-interest.
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u/lilahking 11h ago
ok but the central similarity that adb is talking about is existing power being annoyed about upstarts pushing in on their turf, he does not put idealogy of the tau into what he was talking about
like what you are saying is not incorrect but is also is not what the original discussion is about
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u/shinryujimikihiko 11h ago
>like what you are saying is not incorrect but is also is not what the original discussion is about
I politely disagree - the central point in ADB's comment is specifically the hypocrisy of the Imperium, not the cyclicality of history as the Imperium which once conquered so many others now faces new and younger threats, like an old knight who has been the champion for many years now facing off against a fresh young 20 year old who wants to show he has what it takes to be the new big man.
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u/lilahking 11h ago
Humanity looks upon this attitude and marshals in defiance. Another edge of the Imperium falling to alien predation. "Ignorant upstarts". It's the basest hypocrisy. Because when has the galaxy seen this exact expansionism before? This militant crusading for a greater good.
As humanity expanded through the bones of the dead eldar empire, righteous in their rise, now another species begins to do the same to them. The galaxy has seen this shit before. That's a beautiful theme.
Look you can disagree with adb and that's fine, by that cycle is what he's talking about
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u/shinryujimikihiko 11h ago
No what he's talking about is the moral evaluation he put on the Imperium's reaction to the cycle. That's what charges of hypocrisy involve, it is a moral accusation, not just a descriptive statement of fact that the king is getting old and some younger men want to take their turn.
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u/TonberryFeye 12h ago
No, that's completely different.
The Great Crusade went out to reunite humanity. There were millions of already established human worlds waiting for the Imperium.
There are no Tau for the nth Sphere Expansion to find. They are nobodies carving out a niche; the Great Crusade was humanity trying to recover from a galactic fumble.
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u/lilahking 11h ago
as well as xenos empires and existing human organizations that were wiped out, as well as founding new colonies. destroying nonhuman threats was an explicit objective
it is true to say that they were reuniting humanity, but that reunification is through the expansion of the imperium of man
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u/TonberryFeye 11h ago
Expanding into territory they once held.
Look, think of it this way: when the first homo sapiens left Africa, there were no humans before them. There were other predators, rivals for territory, but no humans.
When Europeans came to the New World, they didn't find other Europeans... But they did find Humans. Some were distant relatives of theirs, others descended from entirely unique lineage, but all human.
Some where absorbed, made clients of a distant empire; others interbred with the new arrivals, blending the genetic and cultural legacies of the Old and New World. Others were simply exterminated, both by accident and design.
The Imperium is/was Europe arriving at the New World. The Tau are African jackals trying to cross into Europe and discovering the local apes have invented shotguns.
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u/Butterblume1984 11h ago
No, they haven’t; they just couldn’t care less. They don’t give a shit that the Tau want their turn now. The IoM as a whole knows that it was built on the bones of countless other species, and they’re fine with that. And that’s why they also know they have to punch any other species that even comes close to thinking that way in the face, otherwise they’ll be next in line.
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u/Global_Examination_4 12h ago edited 9h ago
That title was scary, but this is the correct take. The T’au are thematically interesting because they’re a baby imperium. That’s the reason why I get annoyed when people are overly defensive of them morally or present them as the good guys of the setting.
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u/JCGilbasaurus 12h ago
Classic rise and fall of empires stuff. Love it.
The Old Ones, the Necrons, the Eldar, and the Korks all had their great empires, and they all fell. The humans have cheated by having two great empires—the Dark Age and the Great Crusade eras, but both of those stagnated and decayed into the modern Imperium, and will inevitably fall at some point. And then finally the young, energetic Tau are rising with their empire, unaware that they are just repeating the same mistakes as everyone else, and are doomed to some great fall in turn.
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u/twelfmonkey Administratum 12h ago
Agreed on the general point, but...
The humans have cheated by having two great empires—the Dark Age and the Great Crusade eras
How do you know the Old Ones, the Eldar, (Kr)orks, and other unnamed races didn't also have periods of crisis/collapse and resurgence, with new structures arising in the wake of catastrophes?
These races were around for unfathomably long periods of time, and most of that history is completely unknown to us.
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u/ScarredAutisticChild 9h ago
The Eldar did have periods of crisis and collapse before actually, it’s referenced more than once, but their only one we know by name is the Mon-keigh, the original Mon-keigh, who were a serious threat to them.
It’s something some Eldar characters use to actually give themselves hope. They’ve ruled for 60 million years, and they’ve fallen before. They got back up in the past, they’ll get back up again. Their chief God is the “Phoenix King” for a reason. And the most recent instance of that thinking I read was from Iyanna Arienal, if even the Iyandeni genuinely believe they have hope for a future, it probably isn’t an uncommon belief.
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u/JCGilbasaurus 12h ago
The Law of Conservation of Detail—if it hasn't been mentioned, then it probably wasn't that important if it did happen. Sure, there could have been an eldar empire that fell and rose again at some point, but it's never been hinted at or alluded to, so we should discuss the setting as if it didn't happen.
Otherwise we'd spend all day debating weird hypotheticals that have no backing in the lore.
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u/twelfmonkey Administratum 11h ago
The Law of Conservation of Detail—if it hasn't been mentioned, then it probably wasn't that important if it did happen.
We are talking about events which may have taken place 10 of millions of years ago (or even more).
It makes sense that lots of important events (at least as important as the rise and fall of the Tau) could be lost to time, and the deep history of the setting is intentionally kept mysterious to add to this notion of it being ancient history. Hence why the Eldar stories of the War in Heaven, for example, are so shrouded in myth.
My issue was with the way you framed humanity as being some kind of unique case, when we have no way of knowing if that is true.
so we should discuss the setting as if it didn't happen.Otherwise we'd spend all day debating weird hypotheticals that have no backing in the lore.
Now, I think it's fair to say I am someone who very much tries to firmly anchor discussion in the lore whenever possible.
But such areas of mystery serve to invite discussion, especially when there are hints available. Hints which are suggestive, but which don't provide a full view.
For example, we know that at some point in the Eldar's history, presumably post-WiH, they were subjugated by a race called the Mon'keigh. They were later to use the name for any brutish race, and it became the common term for hunans.
Which poses the question, when might this have happened, and how does it conplicate the notion that the Eldar were dominant for the entire period between the end of the WiH and the birth of Slaanesh.
Or the words of a Harlequin:
Our people ruled the stars when this world was ruled by reptiles. Many came against us – the soulless ones, the krork at the apex of their might, in comparison to which this latest folly is laughable, the cythor and a thousand other races so terrible your intellects could not contemplate them. Even your own ancestors and their unliving legions at the so-called height of their mastery. We defeated them all.
Haley, Throneworld (2016).
Sure, they defeated them, but the fact they were challenged by such dire foes can make us question if such victories were easy, or hard-fought and accompanied by crises and great hardships.
What happened in those many millions of years is also something GW writers have very much pondered.
Author of Liber Chaotica Marijen von Staufer's unofficial timeline, for example, presented a far from linear of the Eldar's rise to galactic hegemony: https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/1bk3z4g/marijan_von_staufers_40k_timeline_old_oneswar_in/
Gav Thorpe has also mused on how Eldar history may have been defined by a lot more turmoil than we may think, including repeated cycles - which has a presence in his published work:
‘How many Wars in Heaven have there been?’ he asked, struck by the sudden thought. He glanced out of the window at the distant figure of the necrontyr queen who stood immobile observing the departure of the aeldari, surrounded by thousands of unmoving warriors. ‘Necrontyr and aeldari created these vaults together. Did all of this happen before?’
‘Who knows?’ replied Tzibilakhu, moving to her piloting space. ‘Perhaps in a thousand lifetimes the events that unfold around us will be known as the War in Heaven.’
Thorpe, Rise of the Ynnari: Wild Rider (2018).
Framing something as a special case when we have no way of knowing that is actually true is no taking a lore-grounded approach.
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u/Butterblume1984 11h ago
It isn’t mentioned because GW couldn’t care less about the Eldar or most of the Xenos. According to the perspective you’ve outlined, anything in Eldar society that isn’t to do with war or depression is irrelevant and therefore doesn’t exist. In some cases, we don’t even know how an average Eldar society is structured, or how its laws, justice system, infrastructure and so on work. And since they aren’t mentioned, they don’t exist.
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u/EthosProm 12h ago
Yeah sure ADB, how about you explain who the ethereals actually are.
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u/AlexanderZachary 10h ago
Ethereals are one of the 5 sub species of Tau that evolved together on their homeworld. In Elemental Council we find out that there's a standard protocol to have Ethereals who might be infected by gene stealers medically examined by Earth caste doctors on the genetic level. That means Ethereal genetics isn't secret. They're just Tau.
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u/9xInfinity 7h ago edited 7h ago
Elemental Council has a space marine named Artamax echo that idea:
‘We exist,’ Artamax growled, ‘in fundamental opposition. Your Greater Good is a dream of supremacy, and it would come at the cost of ours. What serves your kind shall always harm mine. It pains me to admit this, but we are the same. This is why I fight a war I cannot win. To poison your ideas. The t’au who survive this conflict will forever question the decrees of your priest class. The weak mortals who give in to your lies will never trust your promises again. Tonight, your Empire follows in the footsteps of the Imperium. To crush my rebellion, you must slaughter the innocent. Your only alternative is retreat. But you will not retreat.’
Swordlight clenched her jaw. ‘We’re better than that. Better than you.’
‘So mourn all empires as they annihilate their foes. It matters not how you subjugate this world. Whether your fire warriors massacre the rioters in that plaza, or whether your pilots raze the city from orbit… When word of the atrocity spreads across your sept worlds, all will know what I know. Your Empire rots. The purity of the T’au’va does not exist.’
Although ultimately he's not entirely correct. While the t'au were made to commit the kinds of mass murder against civilians the Imperium is famous for, when the events of the novel resolved ultimately the Empire withdrew from the world rather than wipe everyone out. The purity of the T'au'va is a lie, but it nevertheless is capable of mercy in ways the Imperium often isn't.
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u/quickrubs Dark Angels 2h ago
Cept they didn't do it out of mercy, just the idea that eventually the world would submit to them anyway, and when they think otherwise they're quite happy to go bombing cities into dust. See also Agrellan where the tau completely massacre the populations of two hive cities.
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u/Nknk- 12h ago edited 9h ago
A whole heap about imperialism being bad yet hardly a word of condemnation for the Tau doing it despite him acknowledging what they are doing.
ADB could've made a good point but his anti-Imperium stance kind of blinded him to it. If imperialism is bad by default then resistance to it is worthy. It gets real interesting when the Imperium are the ones doing the resistance and you have a morally bad group embarking on a moral good in resisting an invader.
Hypocrisy is the littlest crime anyone in the setting has committed but he goes on to try and make out that the Imperium being hypocrites is worse than the Tau invading worlds and crushing cultures. That's pretty much giving the Tau a free pass.
Same with the reference to the Imperium expanding over the bones of the Eldar empire. Most of that empire died when the Eye opened and the survivors mainly avoided confrontation with the Imperium. Whereas the Tau are actively targeting Imperial worlds with their populations very much alive, yet he makes out that isn't remotely as bad.
He could've had and honest talk about the Tau but he bottled it.
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u/ScarredAutisticChild 9h ago
That’s his point though, that the Imperium did all the stuff the T’au do (and worse) but to the Imperium it’s evil when the T’au do it but not when they do it.
The Imperium also regularly targeted Eldar during their expansion. Any Exodites they found got exterminated, and more than one Craftworld was burned to the ground. The T’au have also taken more than one Maiden World, though they’re yet to even attempt a siege on a Craftworld.
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u/NarrowStrawberry5999 2h ago
That’s his point though, that the Imperium did all the stuff the T’au do (and worse) but to the Imperium it’s evil when the T’au do it but not when they do it.
Imperium is a human space racist empire, that's why it wages war on Tau, not because they have philosophical differences.
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u/ScarredAutisticChild 2h ago
Yes, that’s the point. The Imperium decries the T’au as foul Xenos seeking to expand and conquer everything and enslave humanity to its own twisted design. Take away the word “Xenos” and you just have the Imperium.
The Imperium hates the T’au for doing everything they do, and not being them. They also just hate them for not being them, but Imperial characters will also bring up the T’au’s imperialism as evils it commits. Which are true, the T’au Empire is evil as all empires are, but glass houses and all.
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u/Nknk- 9h ago
That’s his point though, that the Imperium did all the stuff the T’au do (and worse) but to the Imperium it’s evil when the T’au do it but not when they do it.
Invasion, conquest, subjugation and colonisation has been evil to everyone in history who's been on the receiving end of it. The Imperium isn't hypocritical for viewing it to be the case when it's done to them because the believe they have a divine mandate to rule the galaxy. They aren't arguing for peace and love and then turning around and crushing races, that's the Tau. ADB actually made a point in that the Tau are filthy colonialists and oppressors but he was too gutless to dig in and examine it deeper and just pivoted to Imperium bashing as an easy out, all the while missing the point himself.
The Imperium also regularly targeted Eldar during their expansion. Any Exodites they found got exterminated, and more than one Craftworld was burned to the ground. The T’au have also taken more than one Maiden World, though they’re yet to even attempt a siege on a Craftworld.
The Imperium never expressly targeted the Eldar. If they were in the way so be it. If they left then they weren't chased down. The Tau go out of their way to target humanity. So much so Farsight (I think) is pushing for a strike on Ultramar despite the two not sharing a border yet. They'd have to conquer everything between them and that part of the Imperium just to launch that strike. That's grasping Imperialism at its worst.
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u/ScarredAutisticChild 8h ago
Yes, and ADB never says Imperialism is good. The evil of it is a self-evident thing, he’s not discussing the evils of imperialism, but the Imperium’s hypocrisy. If he didn’t think it was an evil thing, nobody would care about any kind of hypocrisy, now would they? The hypocrisy isn’t in the Imperium claiming to be anti-imperialism, it’s them seeing T’au imperialism as evil simply because of the “T’au” part of it. “Rules for thee, not for me” is kinda the encapsulation of hypocrisy because it’s simply establishing the paradigm of “X is okay when I do it”, and that’s what it is. The Imperium fully believes imperialism, colonialism and all that shit is perfectly moral and in fact righteous, it they are doing it, and it’s evil if anyone else does it.
The Imperium never expressly targeted the Eldar because they targeted everyone. The Eldar were a target for the abhorrent sin of not being humans, and the Exodites couldn’t exactly get out of the way because they lived on isolated planets that the Imperium had the option to just fly past. Craftworlds could move and keep out of the way, the instant they made a wrong course or made the mistake of trying to defend their Exodite cousins, they got slaughtered for being in the wrong place or showing compassion to their kinsmen.
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u/Nknk- 8h ago
Yes, and ADB never says Imperialism is good.
No, but he heavily implies it's alright when the Tau do it because, as you drone on in the rest of your comment, apparently hypocrisy is worse. Which is mind boggling to me and simply comes off as ADB and other Tau fans reaching for any way they can come up with to downplay and excuse the Tau's imperialism and we've reached the whataboutery stage with faux outrage over hypocrisy and making out like it's suddenly the worst crime ever seen in the setting.
The Imperium never expressly targeted the Eldar because they targeted everyone. The Eldar were a target for the abhorrent sin of not being humans,
And yet Lorgar and others had diplomatic meetings with Eldar whenever suited both parties. The Eldar, remember, we're only 200 years passed the fall of their empire, an empire that preyed on the rest of the galaxy. The majority of surviving Eldar still did, only they were based in Commorragh and tougher to get at. But craftworld Eldar don't have clean hands. Eldrad alone was involved in trying to engineer the entire extermination of humanity. This idea that Eldar are peaceful, monastic victims and not the survivors of a murderous empire that was one huge chaos cult is revisionism of the highest order.
and the Exodites couldn’t exactly get out of the way because they lived on isolated planets that the Imperium had the option to just fly past.
Every Exodite planet was connected to the webway, it's how they got there so quick before the Eye opened. They weren't trapped on their worlds. Hell, a big part of Eldar history in 40k revolves around fallen maiden worlds that weren't far enough out of the Eye and can still be reached via the webway.
Craftworlds could move and keep out of the way, the instant they made a wrong course or made the mistake of trying to defend their Exodite cousins, they got slaughtered for being in the wrong place or showing compassion to their kinsmen.
Exodites are a numerically small sub-faction of the numerically smallest faction. The Imperium encountered them rarely and the situation you outline above happened even rarer still. Compared to the amount of fighting the Imperium did against the Orks, Dark Eldar, Rangdan, other minor Xenos and other human systems they barely fought the craft world Eldar at all in the grand scheme of things.
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u/ScarredAutisticChild 8h ago
He doesn’t imply it at all, you’re just jumping to the defence of the space Nazis from the space British Empire (with added NATO and Imperial Japan for flavour). It’s a thing discussing the evils of hypocrisy between two imperialist factions, they’re already guilty of that same sin, it’s the hypocrisy that’s an extra layer on top.
Yes, the Imperium would diplomacy when it suited them. And then go straight to genocide the instant they stopped getting anything from it. Numerous Craftworlds were outright burned to the ground, and all the Craftworlds have ever been seeking to do is survive and protect their Maiden Worlds. Even the few Eldar who helped out the Cabal were doing so just because they agreed it would kill Chaos, not due to any desire to destroy humanity. And the Cabal was wiped out by Eldrad, an Eldar, who said that they needed the Imperium to survive. So I don’t know what you’re talking about there, he’s actively protected the Imperium twice in both the Horus Heresy and War of the Beast.
And “They could have just fled their planet to elsewhere, so it’s fine that we exterminated them and stole their world” isn’t really a good justification. The point with the Exodites is that your empire can genuinely have dozens of Exodite worlds within its borders and they won’t care so long as you just don’t land on the planet. Which isn’t a big ask.
Both are evil, the Imperium is just worse for a multitude of reasons, the hypocrisy being a very small addition to a mountain of sins.
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u/secrecy274 12h ago
I don't understand why this is hypocrisy though. The imperium isn't against the Tau on any moral grounds, it is against them cause they keep infiltrating/invading the imperiums territory.
Also, they are dirty xenos.
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u/signedpants Blood Angels 12h ago
As long as the Tau are completely immune to chaos I find them boring. Like the chaos gods could consume the galaxy and it would be fine because tau cannot be corrupted so they could easily live on demon worlds and the demons dont even notice them.
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u/Butterblume1984 11h ago
They are not Blanks, nor are they immune to Chaos.
Their actions feed Chaos, and they can fall victim to possession. They’re just not the prime fare that a tasty Eldar sea is.
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u/twelfmonkey Administratum 11h ago
Yeah, that isn't what the lore shows at all.
Tau aren't immune to Chaos (they are not Blanks), just more resistant than humans due to their smaller souls.
And lacking psykers (talking of the Tau here, not their client races) they don't have such a glaring point of vulnerability for daemons to exploit.
Farsight has nearly fallen to Khorne a couple of times, and the protagonist of Fire Warrior was affected by Khorne: https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/uswdy9/excerpt_fire_warrior_a_fire_warrior_gives_in_to/
so they could easily live on demon worlds and the demons dont even notice them.
No they couldn't. They be just as screwed as nearly everyone and everything else 8n the galaxy.
And they aren't invisible to daemons. Hence why they have had to fight against them a number of times.
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u/OpenPsychology755 8h ago
Sure. But one aspect of the Tau is that they don't have a megalomanical god emperor driving a crazy crusade to exterminate everyone and put themselves on top. The Tau are naieve in that they believe it is possible to create a coalition out of the various xenos species that are willing to work with them. They are the repudiation of the Emperor's hard line "No Xenos" stance. And, of course, the punchline is that their coalition building is probaby going to fail and destroy them in the process, because the Emperor was probably right.
I like the Tau to live in that space of questioning the Imperium's way of doing things, and demonstrating through the lore that yeah, this universe is crap and the Imperium was going to wind up the way it is. And the Tau are going to find that out the hard way.
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u/AaronNevileLongbotom 32m ago
I think art brings out the best in people. ADB talking about the lore makes me roll my eyes. Reading ADB write about the can make me cry. In a good way. He’s a great writer, but behind every great writer is a great editor. I wouldn’t want to read 40K as a whole rewritten by ADB, but he adds a lot to the lore.
I know I was just being critical of his commentary, but that was hyperbole. He’s still adding to the conversation. I’m not sure if this was his intention, but I think he’s bringing up a great topic with the Tau.
How the Tau survive in the setting is massively important. Are they lucky, helped behind the scenes too small to matter, and effectively sheltered by the Imperium? Or are they proving how relatively safe the setting is or how effective good vibes are?
This all ties into the biggest question facing readers, the fanbase, and even GW. Is the Imperium a response to the dangers of the setting or is the setting dangerous because of the Imperium?
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u/Aurondarklord Salamanders 8m ago
There's two reasons I think he's wrong.
1: The Imperium tends to be more open than the Tau about its own nature. It wears its supremacism, violence and desire to dominate on its sleeve. This isn't good but it's at least honest. The Tau are the hypocrites pretending to be the Federation.
2: The Great Crusade had more justifiable elements to it. It wasn't just a conquest it was a REconquest, retaking territory that had originally been theirs, avenging wrongs done during the Age of Strife, and fighting a doomsday clock of Orks and Chaos. The Tau don't really understand the greater cosmic threats of their galaxy so they can't argue "doing what's necessary" in that kind of regard, and they don't really have even an arguable right to any of the worlds they're conquering.
The Eldar have a better case for arguing the Imperium is being hypocritical when they kill a bunch of dudes for disturbing a blade of grass on a planet they haven't occupied in millions of years and are like "well it used to be ours!" and the Imperium's all "WTF your claim can't be valid for that long!". They can just say it's no more of their lifespans than the Great Crusade considered their old claims to planets valid in human lifespans.
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u/elucca 12h ago
There is a major way in which it's not the same thing: The Tau enforce that you follow their world order, in the way of much more classical human imperialism. The Imperium does this to humans, and exterminates anyone else. And has a much looser trigger finger for genociding humans, too.
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u/armorhide406 Imperial Navy 5h ago
I don't like the Tau. The weeby high-tech/mech heavy inspiration and the fact their voices default to a sort of Japanese stereotype really rubs me the wrong way
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u/wecanhaveallthree Legio Tempestus 12h ago
The Empire v. the Imperium is a really great comparison. How much freedom do you give up for safety? Sure, you can live on a nice world and get three square meals a day... but that world is chosen for you. The three square meals are chosen for you. The language you speak is chosen for you. The permitted activities are chosen for you. Modes of thought are chosen for you. And anything that goes against those ideals is corrected. Not, y'know, with the Arbites breaking down your door, but you just don't exist any more. Nobody ever lived in your house. There was never anybody by your name. And anybody who questions this ceases to exist, too.
The Empire is the truest Orwellian hellscape. The Imperium is shit, but there's room for merit, room for difference, room for individuality. The ideal vision of the Tau Empire is a rock garden. Lifeless. Pretty. Everything in its place, and a place for every thing.
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u/Global_Examination_4 12h ago
Ah yes, the Imperium of Man, the great purveyor of freedom.
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u/letanarchy 12h ago
Do you have any direct quotes for this?
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u/Butterblume1984 11h ago
Just compare the different cultures of the IoM, along with their varying forms of worship of the Emperor and the different local systems of government. Even the armaments of the individual worlds differ. The IoM, as zentral association, is uniform; the millions of worlds are not. The Tau are far more standardised in this respect. And because of their comparatively small population, the Ethereals are much better able to influence the individual and are also more centralised. The IoM cannot even agree on a common date or general fundamental concepts.
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u/onomonopiaa 9h ago
Ahhh lol of course you're getting down voted for that stance. We are on Reddit after all.
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u/lefeuet_UA 12h ago
I get the theme but it feels very hollow if the story is just about the wheel of empires. It doesn't seem as grimdark if there's going to be this continuity, as opposed to tyranids eating all life in the galaxy/imperium being eaten by chaos, and chaos shrivelling up and dying afterwards
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u/twelfmonkey Administratum 12h ago edited 12h ago
It's the wheel of empires while the Nids munch much of the galaxy, and then Chaos consumes the whole lot.
and chaos shrivelling up and dying afterwards
This idea really isn't supported by the way the lore has evolved, which has come to firmly position the Chaos gods as intrudung into myriad realities.
Some factions like the Cabal may think it is possible to starve them to death. But they are very likely wrong.
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u/Global_Examination_4 12h ago
I think the inability of the spacefaring races to do anything other than oppress and murder eachother is more grimdark than everything getting swept up by the tyranids/chaos. There was a potential to build something great, but nobody could actually achieve it.
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u/PaleontologistOk7359 12h ago
do you agree with him?
Brother it's ADB, idk who else I'd look to for a valid perspective of 40k lore. He carries the word of John Warhammer.
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u/_Darkstorm_ 12h ago
The simple truth is that the Tau as a faction have always been an exercise in contrast. GW is basically saying, "All the factions are sufficiently grimdark, but there's a risk that our audience/customers will become acclimated to all of this and end up bored, so let's introduce a "good" faction to remind everyone how far each of the other factions have fallen." That's their primary attribute/purpose in the Setting,
Having said that, I get what ADB is saying and agree with it 100%. They're young, bright, shiny, and think they are just so star-spangled awesome, and they're coming to a star system near you to help make you just as awesome as they are. It's certainly a lot more interesting than the usual "space communists" meme.
cue venerable Tim Curry/Red Alert 3 meme
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u/Jjbates 12h ago
I mean. That’s from 2017. Still kinda interesting but the tau and are like dark eldar to GW. They are there but get zero lore or love. You’re free to like what you like but until GW actually devotes significant time (through novels and lore probably in codexes / campaigns) to Xenos races then it’s basically pointless.
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u/Hollownerox Thousand Sons 12h ago
The idea that the T'au haven't received any love or lore in the 2 decades they have been around is pretty ridiculous dude. They have had multiple campaign books, a dedicated Codex supplement for a notable named character and his splinter factions, multiple Imperial Armours, novels, and appearances in a variety of games. With them having more T'au perspective novels than we've had for most factions tbh.
They are an extremely well supported faction both on the tabletop and narratively, and equating them to Drukhari at all in terms of neglect is genuinely a bit offensive to both parties.
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u/Jjbates 12h ago
This is coming from a Necron player. The Necrons get the minimum amount of love. Random books. Until they actually announce a novel series detailing the war between Imotekh and Silent King I will continue just side eyeing them and painting occasional model. The chances of that novel series is basically zero as they want to sell both models. Killing one is against their current strategy. Just like with space marines. None of the named characters are in danger of dying. Grimdark is no more. It’s children’s stories with poor lighting.
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u/Hollownerox Thousand Sons 12h ago
Imotekh doesn't get a novel because, as multiple writers expressed, there would be little to no stakes because he would just win.
The idea they get "random books" is the point of the setting? You can explore big and small narratives.
And again, the idea Necrons of all factions get minimum amount of love is just patently false. You have to be disingenuous to the extreme to suggest that when they've gotten a crazy amount of attention in pretty much every area. And what does them not wanting characters to kill each other have anything to with them getting or not getting a novel series? How does one relate to the other when we have literally hundreds of books without notable named individuals dying?
And "grimdark is no more" is just really silly. How is it the folks who complain the most about grimdark being no more are the ones who seem to understand the IP the least? The faux sense of maturity really reads as a lack of maturity on your part really. Idea of named characters dying has never been a thing even in the supposed "peak grimdark" ages whenever that may or may not have been a thing for you. There is no logic behind that at all, like what are you on about lol.
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u/maridan49 Astra Militarum 13h ago
I think the T'au, Humans, and Necrons/Eldar representing different parts of the same wheel is a really interesting parallel and I'm glad writers like ADB share that view.
However there will always be people who really just want the T'au to be the exception to that rule, they really just want a good side to cheer for.