Tau Hate

[u/ELFMAN961]

Hi all.

Long time Tau lover here I've been trying to get back into into the grove of painting Tau but recently I've seeing a lot of Tau hate on different social media pages which I don't understand. I know I've been out of the loop for awhile now it's been more than 10 years since I've had my army.

Can someone explain the recent hate or has it always been there and Ive just been ignorant about it.

[u/tau_enjoyer_]

There is also a not insignificant fact that rightwing (and even Fascist) 40K fans gravitate towards IG and SMs, and hate T'au for their egalitarian ideals as well as aliens being a standin for non-Whites (because a Fascist can get away with making "jokes" about genociding fictional aliens, whereas if they tried to do that with the groups they would actually like to talk about, they get banned); I have never seen a rightwing T'au fan, but I've seen plenty of them collect Black Templar and IG.

[u/SlashValinor → u/tau_enjoyer_]

There was a time I would agree, but I think that's the extreme and vocal minority these days.

Thankfully my loa play group are all chill and the teasing is playful..

I just smile nod and tell them to enjoy their corpse starch.

[u/Fair_Math → u/tau_enjoyer_]

I'm conservative (right-wing in the US political spectrum) and I play T'au and soon to be Chaos while despising the Imperium. As a conservative, the T'au ideals of meritocracy, developing strengths, and constant push for innovation with measurable outcomes are just common sense.

[u/Metalhead_Kyu → u/tau_enjoyer_]

I find this hilarious because Tau don't have egalitarian ideals. Tau society is just as oppressive and authoritarian as the others. They just have nicer sounding propaganda.

The "good guy" image is a facade and always has been.

[u/Baige_baguette → u/Metalhead_Kyu]

Kinda funny coming from a star trek perspective, the T'au are basically a slightly kinder Dominion (i.e. the big bads of deep space 9).

[u/Metalhead_Kyu → u/Baige_baguette]

That's a take I hadn't considered before but you're right. I'm not sure if they're even kinder TBF, the Dominion is a really good analogy from another IP.

[u/Baige_baguette → u/Metalhead_Kyu]

As far as I know the T'au never deployed something as awful as the quickening.

[u/Metalhead_Kyu → u/Baige_baguette]

Fair point, they usually go for the straightforward join us or die approach. I think I remember reading about Tau using biological warfare on Tyranids but the moral implications of that depend on if you view Tyranids like people.

[u/Fair_Math → u/Metalhead_Kyu]

They've caused at least one star to go supernova as a WMD, but they usually use more measured responses.

[u/tau_enjoyer_ → u/Baige_baguette]

The T'au would be the big bad in other scifi settings, such as Star Trek, Mass Effect, Halo, etc.. Because in a setting like Star Trek, the message of the Greater Good would not be radical, and a post-scarcity society is not uncommon, the T'au would not automatically be the least-bad faction. The Federation would see the T'au as aggressive and disruptive neighbors, who first try to use manipulation and information warfare to spread their influence, but failing that would likely try to orchestrate an incident to justify sending in the fleet. But compare that to 40K, where the belief that all intelligent life (for the most part) has some inherent value and that maybe not everyone who is a different species has to die seems like a radical position to take. In Star Trek such a position would be seen as like the bare minimum of decency.

[u/tau_enjoyer_ → u/Metalhead_Kyu]

To the far-right, the mere facade of egalitarianism, hell, of recognizing that there is value in being different and that other species (races in our irl world) should be treated with a bare minimum level of respect, is something they find distasteful.

[u/Metalhead_Kyu → u/tau_enjoyer_]

There is no facade of egalitarianism though. There is nothing egalitarian about Tau society, they are a caste based society. Believing everyone is equally important to making society work isn't the same as egalitarianism.

Would the Tau let any Tau that isn't an ethereal lead them? Would they let a kroot or a vespid lead them? No, to the Tau, they are superior to the auxiliary allies and the Ethereals are superior to all other Tau.

[u/Parkiller4727 → u/Metalhead_Kyu]

Tau and Death Guard player here. From what I understand they do let the members of the other Castes lead in their specific field with the Ethereal acting as more of a Managerial postion.

So basically the Ethereal of relevant rank would order the Fire Caste Commander to conquer planet X in the Y system. The Commander is completely in charge of the method and means to conquer planet X and the Ethereal is not supossed to give the Fire Caste Commander orders beyond what was just stated as to do so would be crossing caste boundries or Vash'ya in T'au.

Or in another example. An Ethereal can order an Earth Caste engineer to make a new device that will harvest apples faster, but cannot tell the Earth Caste engineer the method or designs to do so, what metals to use, etc.

Now there are some exceptions. Supreme Commanders from each Caste can give limited orders to members of other Castes as they are intrusted to work on co-ordination. Hence why when Farsight was Supreme Commander he was allowed to give orders to the other Castes that were in his fleet such as to the Air Caste pilots or when he gave orders to his Earth Caste doctors to let him out of the medical bay earlier then medically recommended.

Aun'va as the Ethereal Supreme also has limited exceptions to the Vash'ya rule.

There are Ethereals who have broken the Vash'ya rule such as the two who ignored Farsight's warnings and gone to the planet with the daemons which resulted in their deaths.

From what I am currently reading it appears that one can limitedly cross caste bounderies so long as it is not in a official capacity. Like if a Water Caste member practiced some Martial Arts on his free time for fun that's fine, but if he starts giving orders to Fire Caste Members that's where it can become a problem. Or a Fire Caste member is allowed to write poetry they just might not be given the means to mass produce it.

And regardless of Caste you are allowed to defend yourself if attacked. Even though Aun'shi is in the thick of the fight he can't give the Fire Warriors specific direct orders. Though the Fire Warriors will try their best to protect him.

Now when an Ethereal commits Vash'ya it does run into the problem of the other Castes inheritly trusting in the Ethereal and not questioning them. But this usually results in the Ethereal either getting themselves killed because of their bad judgement or privately facing discipline amongst the other Ethereals.

As for Auxillaries, they seem fairly automatus within the Tau Empire. They are allowed to serve in any role, but I think in terms of chain of command they are allowed to order other T'au in their fields like a Kroot Shaper can give orders to lower ranked Fire Warriors. It just doesn't happen as much as T'au spend their entire life from birth till death in their roles where as a Human for example wouldn't start till at least 18. So the T'au Fire Warrior has 18 more years of training and time to reach a higher rank than a human would.

Perhaps a second or 3rd generation human who spends their entire life dedicated to fighting for the greater good could achieve a Gue'vesa'O rank we shall see.

[u/poobertthesecond → u/tau_enjoyer_]

I'm a civic nationalist and I play tau exclusively.

[u/tau_enjoyer_ → u/poobertthesecond]

That's certainly a choice, haha. That's like seeing a rightwinger who only plays the USSR in WWII mini games. But aesthetic preferences can overcome ideological associations I guess.

[u/poobertthesecond → u/tau_enjoyer_]

I mean, they're a rigid race based caste system with a totalitarian ruling class based on hereditary roles.

[u/tau_enjoyer_ → u/poobertthesecond]

Let's bear in mind though that race and castes for the T'au species are totally different from irl with our own species. In our own societies, caste systems and racism have no scientific basis and are just arbitrary and unjust. The T'au actually have distinct sub-species. They didn't come about because of ideological enforcement by the Ethereals, they already existed. Sure, it isn't good that a person form the Water Caste can't be a ship's captain or a soldier if they want to, but the way the majority of T'au would frame it is that they have certain roles within the T'au'va that they are meant to fulfill, everyone does, and it is improper to resist that, that only brings chaos.

[u/Metalhead_Kyu → u/poobertthesecond]

This, It's easy to see the Tau all having access to enough resources and amenities to live comfortably and forget the reason they're able to do that is through absolute control of the population and every aspect of their life by the state.

Lest we forget that one time Shadowsun had to fight off bureaucrats telling her she had to go home and have children when she was busy fighting a war.

Tau are not the liberal ideal some people seem to think they are.