WH40K: Tau hatred

[Lucky]

There is the possibility that Tau are hated because of quotes like this.

Some version of the Tyranids codex
ISBN: 1-84154-650-x
Page:43
Aun'shi of the Tau Empire
How ironic it is that as fast as we spread progress and hope throughout the galaxy, the Tyranids spread death and despair. Only united can we hope to stand against them.

This quote makes the Tyranids seem to be as much a problem as the Tau are.

[Mr. Oragahn]

There is the possibility that Tau are hated because of quotes like this.

Some version of the Tyranids codex
ISBN: 1-84154-650-x
Page:43
Aun'shi of the Tau Empire
How ironic it is that as fast as we spread progress and hope throughout the galaxy, the Tyranids spread death and despair. Only united can we hope to stand against them.

This quote makes the Tyranids seem to be as much a problem as the Tau are.

Yeah well in context it could be an excerpt from a mail send from one mighty Tau to another supreme Tau Lard, with lots of flattery and propaganda in between.

[Lucky]

Yeah well in context it could be an excerpt from a mail send from one mighty Tau to another supreme Tau Lard, with lots of flattery and propaganda in between.

The guy seems to be very experienced in war, and the Tau are a unified people.
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Aun'shi#.T1wq-hyGvC0
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Aun'shi


He is comparing the speed of Tau expansion to the speed and scope of the Tyranid activity. If they were not comparable then the analogy does not make sense, because the Tau's expansion is a known quantity after all.
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You also have Aun'shi of the Tau Empire going hand to hand with Orcs

[Mith]

Yeah well in context it could be an excerpt from a mail send from one mighty Tau to another supreme Tau Lard, with lots of flattery and propaganda in between.

The guy seems to be very experienced in war, and the Tau are a unified people.
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Aun'shi#.T1wq-hyGvC0
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Aun'shi


He is comparing the speed of Tau expansion to the speed and scope of the Tyranid activity. If they were not comparable then the analogy does not make sense, because the Tau's expansion is a known quantity after all.
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You also have Aun'shi of the Tau Empire going hand to hand with Orcs

I'd take that as propaganda. The Tau are nowhere near as powerful or as expansive as the Tyranids are suggested to be. The Imperium itself is supposed to be something like a small empire in comparison to the territory that the Tyranids have consumed.

That's not to undermine the Tau, but the Tau are just not that big. The thing about the Tau that's cool is that despite being a mere fraction of what the Imperium is and being heavily outnumbered, they hold their own through superior skill and technology.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Actually, considering the latest modifications seen in the 5th edition, I can say that the major forces are now:

Imperium of Man. Obviously, if only due to the sheer size and the potential of recovering near the entirety of DoA tech level (plus whatever might happened with super-mega-shaman once he's left to die).
Orks, but not unified. They just tend to spread everywhere. WAAAGH is a problem though.
Tyranids, one single objective and apparently all bounding Terra, more precisely the Astronomican. Largely the biggest threat, not only for the galaxy, but for the heart of the Imperium (although I can always expect some major Deus Ex Machina with some uber Emperor psychic fart that wipes all hives as they make circle around the sol system, for the final hour).
Chaos, eventually, although they're strained to reach the other side of the galaxy (Segmentum Ultima is pretty safe of high level Chaos crap due to the distance with the Eye of Terror).

Necrons... lol. Gone. They've been pussyfied on many levels.
Eldars still cruise around to take back their worlds, just like the dwindling Necrons. Sometimes, you seem 'em. Sometimes, you don't.

[Khas]

Well, Chaos tends to fight amongst itself.

The Necrons aren't completely out yet. They've managed to both shatter and enslave the C'Tan, not to mention the new Crypteks, who are basically Necron psykers, except that they use the power of the physical universe through arcane tech, rather than the warp via the psyker gene.

Dark Eldar: Were never really a major threat to the galaxy. Just an annoyance. A very sadistic annoyance.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Connor MacLeod, Ed. 2012, is a funny bloke. Now that he has presented evidence of the evilness that can be found within the Tau Empire, he seems fairly objective in the way he deals with evidence, instead of going for the typical short sighted extremism he's been known for on a great many subjects.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Damn, that Tau thread at Dakka is long.
I laughed at the following claim, regarding the Imperium's way of management:

Then they're damned from the beginning, as the Greater Good is epic fail from the very beginning. And how can the Ethereals be better rulers when they govern completely ignorant of everything that they have yet to face? I remember one Ethereal who actually welcomed Necrons only to get harvested. In that light, the High Lords of Terra are quite sensible. While they may be responsible for keeping Mankind oppressed, it's because they know what's out there, and their just fulfilling their duty as the acting rulers of the Imperium.

Good thing that SF forces advanced and powerful enough to beat similarly dangerous "outer forces" at a galactic scale wouldn't have to act like dicks by design.
Not only the TAU aren't related to Warp like humans are, but have a higher quality of military tech density over their own territories, meaning that although not being best geared for extension, they can manage defense and turtling fairly well. Even against a Tyranid fleet (they're not unstoppable).
It's even more amusing that one of the reasons the IoM faces so many enemies is that their overall behaviour feeds one of them, Chaos.
At first glance, a simplistic and not negotiable governmental system such as the one fit for the Greater Good is leaving much less room to plotting and political intrigue. They're the "team" that aims at killing the less (they can "assimilate"), and therefore are, globally, one of the factions that is less capable of fueling Chaos.
A Tau at the galactic scale would be far more potent than the current Imperium, and fear much less from Chaos. It would deal with Tyranids in an expected more efficient way. Orks would be the same problem as usual, Necrons would be manageable and actually less offended by the Tau, both because they're less linked to the Warp and that and their politics have a considerably fainter ability at fueling Chaos, which is a huge problem to the Necrons. It could also be possible to get a cold-war style deal with the Eldars.

That said, that Tadashi member has throwing an endless stream of attacks against the Tau in order to turn any potential proof of uber evilness or militaristic failure (irrelevant but so had to find something) into a hardline fact.
A pretty good example of Tau hater. Another one being Brother Coa, who after pages of Taulk (Tau talk) reboots the entire argument about the IoM not giving a shit about the Tau (a point already covered much earlier on when he was already posting).

Amusingly, Black Library "Savage Scars" seems to be the one that portrays the Tau in the weakest and darker way, and is rejected by Tau fans on the basis that it contains crucial errors about the Tau (read: the author didn't seem to care enough about the Tau beyond beating them around as cheaply as possible as long as ruining a lie many Tau fans believe).
The logic is quite similar to that used by some IoM fans found at SBC (Orsai and some other usual acolytes) against the "Imperial Armour" books.

- -- - -- - -- -

From the same thread, a note by a Tau developer:

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

Later, there's that:
http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_Cus ... Fleets.pdf

"As the Tau Empire expands out from its homeworld, the Tau inevitably encounter new races previously unknown to them, and to each of these an offer of allegiance is made. There are many aggressive, arrogant and selfish races in the galaxy, however, and even the Tau often find first contact results in nothing more than yet another bloody war.
There are other races however, who readily accept the message of the greater good and take up their place in the Tau Empire. Some of these races are small, perhaps located on just a single world, or else primitive with little useful resource to offer the Tau, in which case their accession to the Empire is simply a formality, with the benevolent Tau offering protection to these lesser races while they can expect little other than appreciation and friendship in return.
Other additions to the Empire are advanced in themselves, and the union of two such cultures provides valuable new knowledge, technology and understanding for both parties. Such races, where able, fulfil their debt to the Tau Empire by a series of tithes which suit their own particular abilities. Able craftsmen, for instance, may be called upon to provide manufacturing capacity, while aggressive or warlike races will be obligated to provide troops to the armies of the Tau.
There are other races still who do not wish to fully submit to the Empire, but who likewise have no wish for war with the Tau and will instead strike up armistices or treaties of neutrality, opening up lucrative new markets or providing new allegiances for mutual protection. Such races are also likely to hire themselves out as mercenaries to the Tau Empire when the opportunity arises."

You know, it creates Hope. I believe the Imperium of Man has already covered that part. ;)

[General Donner]

That the IoM wouldn't care about the Tau is really quite a bizarre claim when you think about it. Several books mention their rapid expansion into their territory. Dozens if not hundreds of the Imperium's planets have fallen to them. While that's obviously not much of a threat to the whole Imperium, it very much is one on the more local level the sectors operate on. And in For The Emperor, their influence was said to require noticeable mobilization across the Ultima Segmentum to combat.

A piece of news I obtained only recently myself: The Achilles Assault RPG book establishes the Tau spacefleet as numbering safely in the thousands of warships as a lower limit. A Tau expeditionary force in one of their expansion campaign theaters is described as:

Air Caste fleet operations within the Jericho Reach theatre of operations are the responsibility of the Mal'caor Shi Tau high command, a fleet command and control cadre headed by the celebrated Air Caste leader High Admiral Kor'o Y'eldi, a name translating roughly as 'the winged one'. (…)

High Admiral Y'eldi's fleet operates out of a deep space facility spinward of Krrk'tikit, a vast conglomeration of cold-core way stations and sidereal-locked void-wharfs known simply as Anchorage 12. This location fulfils many roles, including fleet headquarters, primary staging zone, logistics hub, and training course, and it guards the rimward terminus of the Landfall Black Reef passage. At any one time, thousands of star ships are to be found at anchor there, from the mighty Hero-class to the ubiquitous Defenders and Messengers.

The Tau domain, again, is little larger (in terms of inhabited planets, at least) than an IoM sector or two. But these typically have a fleet numbering from fifty to seventy-five warships, as stated in the BFG rulebook. While the total imperial fleet count is no doubt larger by orders of magnitude, it's also far less densely distributed. Combining this with their somewhat slower but far more reliable FTL mechanism, the Tau should have little trouble achieving overwhelming local space superiority against any imperial system except those with large stationary garrison fleets.

All things told, the local IoM authorities have every reason to fear the Tau, even if they aren't ruining planets all across the galaxy like the orks or tyranids are wont to do. It takes a rather selective reading of the material to argue otherwise.

[Lucky]

Connor MacLeod, Ed. 2012, is a funny bloke. Now that he has presented evidence of the evilness that can be found within the Tau Empire, he seems fairly objective in the way he deals with evidence, instead of going for the typical short sighted extremism he's been known for on a great many subjects.

Am I correct in concluding that Connor MacLeod ignored every post before his, and seemingly ignored information from sources he sited?

Well, that is something you are making up. "Brightsword traped the Imperium's forces within a narrow gorge and systematically destroyed them in a three-hour slaughter" ( Codex Tau Empire, 4.ed, p.15 ).
For that he was summoned back to T'au. Civilians weren't directly affected by the massacre since they simply didn't participate in the battle. Cities of Death equaly fails to mention any unusualy high amount of civilian casualties or a deliberate massacre of the civilian population.

Simple facts: No. See the designer notes I quoted in this thread and the source in my sig for the commie thing.
BTW if the Tau were fantatics, they would have a massive warp presence which they haven't.

Even if you consider all campaign ending of the non-GW game to be canon at the same time (meaning that this planet is owned by humans, Tau, Necrons, Orks, Chaos AND Eldar), the Imperial narrator in the Tau ending is speculating, why men and women living in separate camps have less children than men and women living together. Beside sterilization, there is a much simpler natural explanation (ask Mom and Dad about it ).

... until a Farsight pupil came and did a massacre, for which he was sacked immediately. Read the context: We are talking about the massacre happy Farsight followers and the rest of the Tau (that Tadashi wants to wake up and be massacre happy as well).

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Does it actually say in Deathwatch that Tau use sterilization?

Not exactly, the report just mentioned that in a some amount of time Human population declined on a planet with no logical explanation at all. Sterilization is the only logical answer to it, that or Humans on that planet decided to move deeper into Tau Empire in large number.

Could also be a result of prosperity, if one wished to give it a positive spin. History and contemporary census data have shown that humanity seems to reproduce faster the more miserable its situation is. Just look to Africa compared to, say, Germany where population is currently in decline.

Probably a natural reaction designed to counterbalance more a greater mortality rate amongst the populace with more children - many of them won't survive as they'd only make the situation worse, but the continued existence of the species is assured as population numbers continue to grow.

Conversely, in 1st world nations, lots of people get too lazy or too busy to bother with children or even relationships. As the need to have a large family (to have the kids help with the workload) subsides, procreation turns from necessity into luxury.

Or maybe the Tau simply have some sort of policy that limits the amount of children a family can have, like - y'know - China (funny sidenote: enter "China" and "greater good" into google and see how many results pop up).

Or maybe there really is forced sterilization, not because the Tau wish to eradicate the human species (which they did not do with the others already part of their Empire either) but simply as a means to optimize population numbers, all for the Greater Good.

... it could be any number of things, and I think people need to realize that each of these options is just as viable as the next. Especially as the sources are not consistent and tend to contradict each other all the time.

[quote=""KamikazeCanuck"] It's true what you say about 1st world nations. They tend to have negative population growth and rely on immigartion to increase their population. However, do we know how long a period of time this obsever noticed the population decline? If it was not over several generations then that explanation is probably not why. [/quote]

Aye, that's a good question.

Of course, forced sterilization or even just a simple law takes some time to leave noticeable results, too. In this light, it might also be worth knowing whether those observers have infiltrated the databanks of the colony and "stolen" census data for comparison, or if they simply noticed there's fewer people on the streets. Which, for what it's worth, might also be some sort of curfew or part of a relocation program from the cities to other regions of the planet - or the other way around.

I actually remember suggesting empty streets and a "suspiciously clean environment" to a DH or DW GM who inquired about how to portray a Tau-controlled world, to give it a "creepy" spin, heh.

Personally, I'm still undecided on the whole sterilization thing, possibly because I tend to gravitate towards the aforementioned "happy medium" between communist paradise and malicious tyranny. I think I prefer the version where it gets applied on a limited scale as a measure to "balance" population numbers.

As always, this seems to depend on which source you look at.

This was on GW's Gue'vesa article:

"These humans, often the descendants of troops captured or abandoned during the abortive Damocles Crusade, now live and fight alongside the Tau. For them, fate has dictated that the Imperial Creed and the rule of the Adeptus Terra be replaced by loyalty to the collectivist Tau empire and to the ruling Ethereal caste. [...] The rapid redeployment left many human soldiers stranded; a situation soon exploited by the famous Commander Farsight as he followed in the wake of the retreating Human fleet, offering those left behind the stark choice of integration into the Tau empire, or a bleak future as prisoners of war. Faced with the proposition of being stranded many light years from home in a hostile and foreign region, many saw no alternative. These warriors and their offspring now maintain colonies on the frontiers of Tau space, content under their new masters yet none the less apprehensive of Imperial retribution should they face another crusade."

Naturally, there would be no offspring if sterilization would have been employed.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Contrary to the IA books, it's a Black Library production that began to paint the Tau in a different way from the Codex.
That said, during my search of threads about the newcrons and what people thought of them, I stumbled upon a four pages long one about the less grimdarkness of recent 40K ... which I sort of personally experienced in parallel by first building my own vision of 40K from the few posts here and there at SBC until I got to read more I thought oh, it's not that bad as a situation after all.
That thread put into perspective all the details showing why 40K is globally looking less grimdark in several ways, and why some fans relate this to the introduction and evolution of the Tau, sort of scapegoats ready to be lynched because of being a faction that's really brighter than all others. Hence the forced attempt of many players to prove that the Tau are a pseudo-paradise with a dark secret at their core.

I for one can see the positive side of this : not only it would add some depth to the faction, but it would still allow new players attracted to Warhammer 40000 through the Tau's shininess to later see that things aren't as bright as they may have thought.
The problem is that it would also be a great divergence from the initial concept of having, at least, a faction that's not evil-fucked up from genesis, and I can see how it's equally important to preserve that.

It's the reason why some people pointed out that the brightness of the Tau helped enhance the darkness of the other factions. You can't have shadows without light.

[Lucky]

Contrary to the IA books, it's a Black Library production that began to paint the Tau in a different way from the Codex.
That said, during my search of threads about the newcrons and what people thought of them, I stumbled upon a four pages long one about the less grimdarkness of recent 40K ... which I sort of personally experienced in parallel by first building my own vision of 40K from the few posts here and there at SBC until I got to read more I thought oh, it's not that bad as a situation after all.
That thread put into perspective all the details showing why 40K is globally looking less grimdark in several ways, and why some fans relate this to the introduction and evolution of the Tau, sort of scapegoats ready to be lynched because of being a faction that's really brighter than all others. Hence the forced attempt of many players to prove that the Tau are a pseudo-paradise with a dark secret at their core.

I for one can see the positive side of this : not only it would add some depth to the faction, but it would still allow new players attracted to Warhammer 40000 through the Tau's shininess to later see that things aren't as bright as they may have thought.
The problem is that it would also be a great divergence from the initial concept of having, at least, a faction that's not evil-fucked up from genesis, and I can see how it's equally important to preserve that.

It's the reason why some people pointed out that the brightness of the Tau helped enhance the darkness of the other factions. You can't have shadows without light.

You wouldn't happen to know where I could find the quotes and context for the Tau mind control, mass sterilization program, and planned genocide would you?
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What I've always liked about the Tau wasn't that they were nice and friendly (they're not) but that they just weren't: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... oticStupid, http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LawfulStupid, http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StupidEvil, http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... pidNeutral and so on. Every other 40K faction has a bleeping stupid alinement.

[Mr. Oragahn]

A good place to start from and which contains a lot of quotes is precisely from the long thread I've been linking to and which you also read:
Tau, more Grimdark than they first appear?
There's some page down there and which you've probably already read that lists about the three major sources that depict the Tau political ideology: the Codex, plus two BL books I believe, one clearly being the problematic item, "Savage Scars".
Plus a bit from Xenology I believe wherein an Ethereal's skull is dissected and there's some stone that's found in the forehead that may be related to some mind control function. When I read that in the thread, it rather looked very circumstantial and too geared towards extrapolation.
Less quotes, shorter thread, but with some varied opinions about the overall grimdarkness of the universe here.

[Lucky]

A good place to start from and which contains a lot of quotes is precisely from the long thread I've been linking to and which you also read:
Tau, more Grimdark than they first appear?
There's some page down there and which you've probably already read that lists about the three major sources that depict the Tau political ideology: the Codex, plus two BL books I believe, one clearly being the problematic item, "Savage Scars".
Plus a bit from Xenology I believe wherein an Ethereal's skull is dissected and there's some stone that's found in the forehead that may be related to some mind control function. When I read that in the thread, it rather looked very circumstantial and too geared towards extrapolation.
Less quotes, shorter thread, but with some varied opinions about the overall grimdarkness of the universe here.

I know that, but I've never seen anyone actually post the quote from the Xenobiology book.
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THe non-canon Dawn of War: Tau ending
Source of the mass sterilization nonsense.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYAjyJvPFfI

First many humans resist the Tau.

Then they are put into reeducation camps and separated by sex.

Tau and Kroot are brought in, and the human population dropped to 5%. That sounds like the number of Tau and other races simply increased, and it is possible humans may have been moved to other planets.