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[Rolepgeek]

Well, thing is, Tau are Great Crusade 2.0. Mysterious new member(s) of the race leads them to prosperity and strength from the midst of chaos, turmoil, and destruction, then leads them forward. It's just Ethereals replacing the Emperor, and a far more diplomatic approach by necessity. Having a quarter or so of your race be military also helps with that. Instead of Space Marines and Imperial Army, it's Fire Caste and Air Caste, since they've been mildly genetically modified through selective breeding and the like to be better at fighting, though mostly it's the tech doing that. Different tactics to the 'Titans and Drop Pods' of the Imperial Great Crusade, but the basic principles behind it are still basically the same. Join voluntarily and see the light of our philosophy (and Tau seem a bit better than Imperium at respecting existing cultures, though that may bite them in the ass later), or join through force. Either way. Takes longer, without literally the Emperor to lead them, but yeah.

Humans just got lucky and got the Emperor, is all.

[Andres]

You're comparing post-apocalypse Eldar tech to pre-apocalypse Human tech. Real even comparison there, huh?

I'm comparing cheap pre-apocalypse Human shit to post-apocalypse Eldar tech. It evens out quite nicely, I would think, especially if Eldar tech didn't diminish as much as you've been saying since the Fall.

Oh please. That's what every dictator regime says. "Once we win, it'll be peaches and cream!"

40k is a setting where they'd be right.

The Imperium would start to crumble without an enemy. Without a war effort to be in desperate need of material. Humanity would splinter, like it always does, and you'd be back to the same old thing.

You're underestimating the Imperium's ability to change. The modern Imperium doesn't have a lot of similarities to what it was in the first few millennia after the Horus Heresy. There was a major balance of power shift during the Age of Apostasy yet the Imperium collapsed neither then nor in the millennia afterwards. If the Imperium achieved peace, they'd simply reorganise like they'd done several times before. Heck, they could look at the old Council of Terra if they wanted some inspiration for an Imperial government capable of running during peace.

Yeah, it's far, far more likely that Tau would be the 'Everything could be peace and prosperity' race.
However, the Farsight stuff has entered a few doubts as to the severity of the hold which the Ethereals have over the Tau.

They're all nice and cheery on the outside, but on the inside they have their own fair share of grimdark. If humanity is grimdark child Jesus, Tau is baby Hitler. One does a lot of evil but only because it as to and it'll do far greater amounts of good when it gets older, while the other is only good now because it's so young.

EDIT:

Humans just got lucky and got the Emperor, is all.

There was no luck involved in the creation of the Emperor. His existence is due to humanity's greatness, not the other way around.

[Rolepgeek]

...Really. The Tau are baby Hitler, while Humanity is baby Jesus. You've taken Godwin's law to the nth degrees Andres, and I can no longer tell if you're being satirical. And no, 40k, grimdark as it is, would be the setting where they would never, ever, ever be right except on that one planet which exists only to be destroyed because 40k can't have nice things.

The Imperium would reorganise, and sure, peace for a bit. And then it would splinter again. You know it would. Space Marines would not go quietly into the night. Inquisition would not quietly step down from power. Planetary governors would not hand over rule to the people and let Democracy. Hell, with Chaos, everyone would be worried about that.

Tau have their grimdark, but they're nowhere near humanity's level. They won't magically become Hitler as they get bigger, and become worse than the Imperium. Their Grimdark is far more subtle than that, and they're designed to be the naive race, not the 'secretly super evil' race. That's bullshit and you know it.

Humans just got lucky and got the Emperor, is all.

There was no luck involved in the creation of the Emperor. His existence is due to humanity's greatness, not the other way around.

You are incorrect. There's nothing more to say on this specific subject.

[Andres]

I can no longer tell if you're being satirical.

I have been sincere in my claims. No satire.

Planetary governors would not hand over rule to the people and let Democracy.

I should hope not. People gaining status and responsibility based on popularity rather than competence would be pretty shit. It's basically high-end cronyism.

Tau have their grimdark, but they're nowhere near humanity's level.

Not yet which is what I'm getting at.

they're designed to be the naive race, not the 'secretly super evil' race.

They're naive because they're young. As they get older, they will lose their naivety and become the secretly super evil race. They won't stay naive forever.

[Rolepgeek]

they're designed to be the naive race, not the 'secretly super evil' race.

They're naive because they're young. As they get older, they will lose their naivety and become the secretly super evil race. They won't stay naive forever.

What're you basing that off of? What are you going off to say that this just a phase for the Imperium, and really, they'd be nice if you just stopped making them hit you, you stupid, stupid xenos don't you see I actually love you why do you make me do this to you? This is your fault that I'm hitting you, really. I just can't control myself when you're so different and inhuman.

What are you going off of to say that the Tau will do a 180 degree switch once they realize Chaos is a thing? Because they already know some races can't be reasoned with. What are you going off to say that this will happen? How much Tau lore do you actually know? I'm inundated with Imperial lore, considering it's the focus of the whole bloody franchise, but what are you going off of?

Planetary governors would not hand over rule to the people and let Democracy.

I should hope not. People gaining status and responsibility based on popularity rather than competence would be pretty shit. It's basically high-end cronyism.

As compared to heredity, status, wealth, or luck?

[Urist McScoopbeard]

What I'm hearing right now is that humans are not actually the underdogs in this scenario, they're the Big Bads. I mean, if the Stalinist and Nazi iconography, ritual sacrifice of minorities, explicitly genocidal intentions, and theocratic regime based on hatred, fear, and ignorance wasn't enough to show that.

No, they are. That's the point. They're literally the evil empire.

[Kot]

They're us though. Imperium is evil, but considering it's the only faction that gives humanity chance of survival, they're instantly elevated to status of best guys around.

[NullForceOmega]

Like humanity has some sort of 'right' to survive.  None of the factions deserve to live, they're all just dark for the purpose of being dark, so they have no redeeming qualities whatsoever.  Only the Tau even tried to have any sort of positive outlook, and of course GW went and turned them into 'more of the same'.

[Rolepgeek]

They're us though. Imperium is evil, but considering it's the only faction that gives humanity chance of survival, they're instantly elevated to status of best guys around.

Why give a shit about humans in particular in a fictional world? I mean, that's wrong anyway, a Tau-Imperium alliance gives the best chance, and Tau give a perfectly respectable ability for humans to survive (but of course you mean unquestionably dominate, not survive :/).

I can relate far more to the Tau, 'alien' as they may be with their concepts of self-sacrifice, working towards a greater goal, attempts at equality, diplomatic approach to conquest, and idealistic viewpoint, than I can to the fanaticism, zealotry, and hatred of the 'humans' in 40k. I'll go into detail about where Loud Whispers is wrong or mistaken later, but the first off thing is that the Tau haven't reachee their limits and are in fact said to be expanding extremely rapidly in this Third Sphere, their current, newest ships range around a third of Imperial average Warp speed(though that might just be the Messengers, I'm not certain), and their typical transports are around a fifth of Imperial. But far more reliable in arriving on time, every time. Which, over the years, means more ships ferrying material, which helps make up for the speed by quite a bit.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

They're us though. Imperium is evil, but considering it's the only faction that gives humanity chance of survival, they're instantly elevated to status of best guys around.

Are they though? I mean... can we really consider the imperium to be "The best guys around," sure people WITHIN the Imperium--but on a whole, purity darn evil.

They're us though. Imperium is evil, but considering it's the only faction that gives humanity chance of survival, they're instantly elevated to status of best guys around.

Why give a shit about humans in particular in a fictional world? I mean, that's wrong anyway, a Tau-Imperium alliance gives the best chance, and Tau give a perfectly respectable ability for humans to survive (but of course you mean unquestionably dominate, not survive :/).

I can relate far more to the Tau, 'alien' as they may be with their concepts of self-sacrifice, working towards a greater goal, attempts at equality, diplomatic approach to conquest, and idealistic viewpoint, than I can to the fanaticism, zealotry, and hatred of the 'humans' in 40k. I'll go into detail about where Loud Whispers is wrong or mistaken later, but the first off thing is that the Tau haven't reachee their limits and are in fact said to be expanding extremely rapidly in this Third Sphere, their current, newest ships range around a third of Imperial average Warp speed(though that might just be the Messengers, I'm not certain), and their typical transports are around a fifth of Imperial. But far more reliable in arriving on time, every time. Which, over the years, means more ships ferrying material, which helps make up for the speed by quite a bit.

Every faction in 40k can tell you something (albeit with extreme hyperbole) about humanity. Pretty much all factions in 40k are in a permanent state of stagnation due to one reason or another. Also like the Emprah's whole thing was fuck Xenos, because in the end they would either end up enslaving humanity or being enslaved by it. So there's that.

[Tack]

Ehh, it's been said that the Tau-adjacent imperial worlds tend to have big issues with sedition.
The tau are just too... cult-y. Makes everyone wanna up and be a weeaboo.

Not jumping on Andres weird humanophile train here, but I do think that if the Tau were to become a full-fledged empire, then you'd start to see more of the strings being pulled in the background.
According to Farsight, the fire caste has basically been bred to be impressionable, and the other member-races under the Tau umbrella are quite... well... primitive.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if the numbers of Gue'vesa hit critical mass. We're all far too free-thinking.

[Mech#4]

On the warp travel and all that conversation: I remember the Necrons being mentioned as having something similar to the Tau with their FTL but due to the Necrons being completely separate from the Warp their ships just accelerate to high speeds and then decelerate when they arrive.

I'd imagine they'd also have some method of teleporting from tomb world to tomb world since their armies can teleport off the battlefield when badly damaged and can appear from the portal built into the Monolith. Distance travelled is not something I remember being mentioned, could be the same planet or could be from another solar system.

[Tack]

The Necrons Used to use a weird gravity well thing much like the Tyranids afaik. However sometime ago they managed to crack open the webway, so they've pretty much been abusing that ever since.

As far as I'm aware all of their short-range stuff is quantum wassit.

[Mech#4]

Is that part of the later codex? I know the major parts but did the Necrons method of moving about space get changed between codex versions?

I was going to say I thought the Necrons couldn't use the webway because they have no warp presence but the webways not really part of the warp is it? More like tunnels between the warp and realspace.

[Grim Portent]

Is that part of the later codex? I know the major parts but did the Necrons method of moving about space get changed between codex versions?

I was going to say I thought the Necrons couldn't use the webway because they have no warp presence but the webways not really part of the warp is it? More like tunnels between the warp and realspace.

As of the newcrons they accessed the webway with the help of the Burning One, one of the C'tan who wanted to burn the webway during the War in Heaven.

The webway itself is basically a network of semi-realspace in the Warp, much like how a Geller field maintains a bubble of reality around ships, the webway's wraithbone warding maintains reality within their boundaries.