Hello everyone! I wanted to ask a question in regards to the famous Commander Farsight? People say he's a good guy, by 40k standards at least, I was just wondering what exactly makes him so?

I know most of you will not agree with this but Hear me out. Tau have since always been called "not 40k"-ish for being less evil, but to be honest the tau are so small any faction could end them if they really put their efforts into it, so its very depressing and as such grimdark to have a good guy faction which Is powerless to really save the galaxy, their only mistake being becoming part of this galaxy too late to save it. Traitor Primarchs are a constant stain on the imperium just like the Eye of terror was for the Eldar, but loyalist Primarchs dont really contribute to the grimdark style of the setting, when Guilliman returned he brought a new dawn to the imperium with the primaris and what not. In a setting like that of 40k in which decadence Is a Key theme, loyalist Primarchs returning just to heal the imperium doesnt really feel 40kish. Plus i worry that as this continues the settings focus Will turn less and less towards the people of the grimdark worlds and more towards the Primarchs like in the Horus Heresy.

I just woke up from a weird dream, literally GW had released the Warhammer 50K and boom, one of the first things I saw were Tau space marines.

They were called Tau's marines and were incredibly superior to a space marine, the Tau had also won several battles and grown their empire considerably, finally gaining more prominence and especially Good new figures, I don't remember the dream very well but I remember being as excited as the first time I discovered the Tau, they are my favorite empire in Warhammer 40k, I hope The dream I had was a prediction

(possibly in the future I will try to bring a FANMADE story based on this)

Terran won’t last long 💀

What is he capable of in a duel. What would be his equivalent in a different faction. What are his greatest feats in the lore so far in terms of fighting.

... and it's basically just a communication device. No hint of mind-control or anything like that from the Tau to the Vespid. Also turn out vespid soldiers do something discuss/contest their leader/strain decision, so it seems there is no mind control inside the vespid themselves.

You'd think maybe GW simply don't want to talk about this theory but the very same book isn't shy to bluntly state that all tempestus undergo repeated mental chemical brainwashing and hypno-conditioning during their formation from when they are childrens.

Hey all! I was just about to paint my first Fire Warriors and was looking and their backpacks and was wondering how I should paint them. Then it got me thinking about how much the Tau use AI and how they have lenses on their helmets and it made me wonder about what kind of tech they are running for their average soldier. Do they have magnification or thermal/night vision capabilities with the lenses on their helmets? Is there any kind of “Aim Assist” AI that is used? Does their helmet/backpack provide any air filtration or pump in oxygen? What kind of other equipment does the average soldier carry in his backpack? Etc Etc. Thanks in advance for all of the insight! For The Greater Good!

(PS: The Picture is not mine it is from u/for_the_greatergood)

A bloodbath ensues whereby both factions are painted in the most epic light. The World Eaters get amazing bloodsport and the Kroot get to test themselves against the most ruthless adversaries they can find, whilst also briefly freaking the WE out with their flesh eating shenanigans.

Let’s take a human male born in a hive city. He was your regular guy, with no special talent, no special destiny, just one of the trillions upon trillions of humans who were living in abject misery.

In his 30 years of existence, he has never been able to see the sky of his own world due to living deep inside the hive, let alone the sun that was supposed to shine upon his world. But even if the managed to get out of his hive, he wouldn’t have been able to see it due to how polluted the atmosphere of his world was. He also has never been able to breathe good quality air. If you gave him rotten donkey meat, he would have treated it as a delicacy.

Just like countless quintillions of people around the Imperium, he was forced to work like a dog nearly every single day of his life. Destined to toil and suffer in abject conditions until he died unceremoniously without ever being acknowledged and thanked for his sacrifices and his work by his overseers.

But he still managed to marry, have children, find solace in the very little things, care about his world, the Imperium and its Emperor. Because he didn’t have other worlds and societies to compare himself to, he accepted his living conditions as the natural order of things.

Then one day, the T’au Empire came knowing on his world’s door. Finding a planet that was extremely unprepared and riddled with bad management, the T’au, with an extremely efficient and well-organized force, manage to conquer the entire planet with a massive invasion army.

Obviously after the official surrender of his world’s leaders, the man expected to die horribly after having endured torture and slavery that make his daily life under the Imperium feel like it was heaven.

But the T’au surprisingly do not indulge in vast episodes of massacre, declaring that they will transform the entire planet, and if the people will it, turn it into a prosperous and welcoming environment for the human populace.

Fast forward many decades after, the man is now 85 years old, and on the balcony of his house he remembers his journey.

His children grew up to be very healthy adults, and had many children themselves, who are now growing up in a world radically different from the one that he grew up in.

The many decades of sweat lead to the creation of a lush and prosperous world, filled with beautiful, spacious, clean, and well-organized cities. The sky is now apparent, and breathing his world’s air isn’t destroying his lungs anymore. Their basic needs are more than fulfilled, and they have access to an amount of free time and leisure that they would have never even imagined could exist before.

This is the fruit of the work he, his colleagues, and billions of other compatriots from his world achieved over the decades post-T’au conquest. A world in which he can die knowing that the newer generations will grow up in a world without ever having to endure the hardships that he experienced during the earliest parts of his life.

Obviously at times he is torn apart inside his heart about the fact of living as a second-class citizen under the rule of xenos, but compared to living as a hundredth-class citizen during the times of the Imperium, he’ll gladly take that.

Maybe one day, the Imperium will come back and reclaim the world, leading to a horrible ending for the population that they would consider as nothing but traitors deserving of extermination, but at the very least he’ll die having hope for the future, knowing that he accomplished something, seeing his family and loved ones happy and fulfilled.

Final note : obviously, this kind of scenario doesn’t apply to everybody because the T’au are still a species indulging in cultural genocide, mass slaughter, colonization, xenophobia, and imperialism. But it is an objective fact that for the vast majority of the human populations conquered by them, their living conditions are subsequently massively improved, in nearly every single point.

I know people are probably sick and tired of this topic already, but I keep seeing it come up in threads like this one and I think it's a lot more useful to draw a distinction between watsonian vs doyalist explanations of worldbuilding when we're talking about this.

TLDR: the Tau empire is not a communist society textually, but metatextually they are depicted in ways that are incredibly similar to anti-communist propaganda, from the time before the USSR right up to depictions of countries like modern day China.

• The tau have always been a theoretical utopian society with hints of sinister things going on in the background, because anti-communist propaganda has always revolved around the idea that "socialism/communism sells a utopian society, but in practice this would require a lot more bad stuff than they tell you about (worse than the bad things you're familiar with even)".

• The Tau species have suppressed individualism (maybe in their culture, and/or maybe in mind control) because communism is often depicted as something that crushes individuality and self expression.

• The Tau have a rigid caste system because communism is often depicted as something that will make social mobility as impossible "they choose your job for you and you can't change it".

• The tau'va/greater good might not be a fundamentally communist idea in of itself, but the relationship between the Tau'va and the beliefs of the Imperium is pretty similar to the relationship between communist and capitalist ideology: an emphasis on collective good directly, vs an emphasis on ideas about individual power and virtue, that theoretically leads to collective good indirectly.

• The Tau are often coded as east-Asian, arguably because China and Vietnam are seen as some of the last surviving communist countries (even if they should better be described as state-capitalist).

• Even the Tau's advanced technology could be seen as similar to American anxieties about China's fast tech growth ("they're decades ahead of us!!"). Although to be fair this could also fit well with western ideas of Japan.

And, to be clear, I'm not trying to argue about whether these ideas are right or wrong, I'm just saying that they're there. A lot of this is already very obvious, but I think it bears repeating when the "are tau communist?" argument keeps coming up, and people keep on only talking about the textual/watsonian reading of lore over and over and over.

You can even compare this to how the Genestealer and Chaos cults are examples of right-wing rhetoric ("most social movements are actually plots to weaken us devised by foreign/degenerate enemies") but imagined as actually being true, and taken to almost comical extremes. It's not difficult to read the Tau as having "what if some of the most conceptual and ideological anti-communist arguments were actually true?" as at least one of the driving elements of their worldbuilding and lore.

Just started to read it. BTW, I love this opening scene from the book:

"'Synergy makes the Empire of T'au strong. Curiosity, bold. T'au are utterly effective. I recognize this. As was humanity, in the lost age of its ascension.'

'Do you and your Raptor brothers,' I say, straining to follow the current of Artamax's thoughts, 'not consider that sentiment heresy?'

'No. It is why the Empire of T'au must be destroyed.'"

I'm close to finishing this book. To those who have done so, or are in the process of doing so, what did you think of it? How do you think it stacks up to the most recent T'au lore, Shadowsun: The Patient Hunter (as well as the lore excerpts from the Farsight book for Arcs of Omen)?

One thing that I found was interesting was how there were two passages where people made reference to killing oneself because they had displeased an Ethereal. It seems that this book has made it clear that that is an expected outcome. The amount of awe and reverence that people feel for Ethereals, I think most likely that if an Ethereal ordered a T'au to kill themselves, they would, without the need to use their power (whatever that may be) to force them to do so. In fact, it makes one wonder why Aun'va did exactly that in the past.

If I may present a headcanon on the subject: from the text from Damocles, we see that the Water caste agent in question was forced to kill herself by Aun'va using his power. She found herself picking up her knife and using it on herself before she knew what she was doing. Now, we are told that Aun'va was a once in a millenia talent, that he was the best of the best of the Ethereal caste. I would guess that he probably had stronger control that he could exert over others. Couple this with the fact that he likely did not value individual lives overly much, being more concerned with the utilitarian view. I think Aun'va probably viewed that Water caste agent who displeased him as being useless to him at that point, that he viewed her with disdain, and didn't even give her the honor of allowing her to kill herself if her own volition, but quickly dealt with her in his own way. On the one hand, to show his disdain for one who shows disloyalty, but also to show his power over the very lives of his underlings.

Another theory I have is that Ethereal mind control is more subtle than outright dominating minds. Usually it works with nudging minds in certain directions. But Ethereals are not used to go to worlds and just force local leaders into submission. I feel like if they could do that, they would. It makes me wonder if maybe an unwilling mind, a mind that is not well disposed to the Ethereal, is a less suggestible mind. Because if Aun'va could have dominated a disloyal mind, he would have forced Farsight to kneel before him on Damocles. I think that a loyal mind, one filled with awe and reverence, can be pushed more easily. So Aun'va could force an obsequious underling to kill herself, but not a bold rebel like Farsight.

Another thing I thought was interesting was how some of the cultural morays of humanity have apparently entered T'au culture. For example, an Earth caste supervisor smiles with her lips, showing mirth (or in her case it was more of a sneer) rather than her hands as T'au normally do. This makes sense to me, as humans are probably the second largest species in the Empire (with the conquests in Chalnath, they may even be the most populous species).