However that does provoke an interesting question- could the dark age of technology humans have been on the brink of following the Eldar hedonistic degeneration, except the age of strife stopped that action?
Give it a few millennia, yeah. It's quite striking that the human empire's expansionism coincided with the eldar's decline. The same signs of decadence were there, especially in regards to tech-heresy - essentially because the biggest reason why humanity didn't beat the Eldar to birthing Slaanesh was not for a lack of orgies but because humanity was still only just recovering its psyker population (nearly brought to extinction by Pariah dickery, witch king wars and the mass suicide to birth Empy). Also on the same vein of logistics, the Age of Strife happened specifically because the massive warp storms brought about by the Eldar faffing about cut off the warp and so warp travel became impossible; all the Imperial lines of communication and travel were cut off. Independent sectors had to become independent Empires or die and planets that relied on anything more than their solar neighbours for anything were quickly extinguished by xenos or apocalyptic collapse. And then psykers started appearing (probably boosted by the fact that all these isolated human worlds were suddenly immersed in warp storms), and all the backwards witch-hunting worlds became the only ones to survive, because instead of protecting psykers, they did all the shit like burn them at the stake and so protected them from the massive warp demon-rape waves about to come. Rather significantly during all this, the only people to be traveling "safely" in the warp were demons and the newly born Adeptus Mechanicus.
Also, what on earth were Khorne, Tzeentch and Nurgle doing during the age of strife? Was nobody being corrupted, or was there just a big cordon built around the maelstrom so renegades had nowhere to hide?
They were eating the remnants of the Eldar Empire, containing Slaanesh's rave, plunging the remnants of the human Empire into insanity/demonic possession. Eating the remnants of the Eldar Empire is probably what took the most time, given that even in decline there were a hell of a lot of Eldar to nom, and their gods still put up a fight. It's a testament to how large the Eldar Empire was that in relative terms, so many survived with enough of their technology that they are still capable of maintaining intergalactic cohesion through their webway gates and self-sufficient craftsworlds. Funny as well, that their craftsworlds, some of the most advanced planet-sized ships floating around in 40k, were used as commercial space elf rogue-traders before the fall :
P
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.
Why would it splinter? Why would the Imperium try killing the spehss mahrines? Why would the Imperium need to force the Inquisition to step down? Also the Planetary governor system is not one you'd want to remove, given that they mean you can do whatever you want on your planet as long as you pay your tithes and that shit isn't heretical.
Age of Strife - Massive warp storms born from the turbulence of Slaanesh's birth cut off all the worlds that had been colonized by humans in the dark age of technology. The only ones that survive being cut off from the rest of humankind are those that are capable of looking after themselves against xenos invasions and demon incursions. Whole human civilizations are wiped out and many of the most fearsome weapons of the dark age are deployed, never to be seen again, leaving only barren planets in their wake. Even Terra is plunged into civil war. Emps decides to sort some shit out and reveal himself directly.
Horus Heresy - No massive warp storms across the galaxy, mostly a complex series of issues from chaos fuckery to a lot of immortal warrior-kings with daddy issues. During the Horus Heresy the founding members of the Inquisition and the militant arm of the Ordo Malleus get together for a chat. In one of the few awesome bits of spiritual liege fluff, Roboutue Guilliman slags off Horus for having betrayed all of humanity for personal gain - going beyond the point of treachery, into Horus's Heresy. Shit was about to go down in Terra when reinforcements from the Dark Angels and Space Wolves approaching through the warp made Horus realize his ambitious gamble was about to turn into failure. Ollanius Pious slaps Horus with his adamantium balls around about here. In the reformation post-reconquest against the traitor legions still running about, the Imperium is reformed so that no one man can wield all the Legions, no Fleet can invade any single planet nor any army start galactic wars of conquest, not without all of them committing triple heresy in collusion without the newly-founded Inquisition noticing. The High Lords of Terra would permanently cement the Imperium's executive branch in the hands of civilian administrators vs immortal warriors.
Age of Apostasy - Massive warp storms once more cut off the Imperium of man from itself and worlds erupt in an anarchic frenzy of WRYYYYYYYYYYY. Xenos and traitor legions begin running around as they realize once more the Imperium cannot stop them from preying upon isolated worlds. Amidst all this the civilian administrators begin chafing under the rising power of the ecclesiarchy, sowing the seeds for Goge Vandire's civil war. Isolated from Terra, the Spehss Mahrines, Forge Worlds and Hive Worlds mostly do their own thing by fortifying and expanding by their own judgement, unaware that this massive civil war is taking place. Those Imperials near Terra under Sebastian Thor, Space Marines and the Fabricator General of Mars realize Goge is batshit insane and has to go. By the time the warp storms abate and the Imperium once more regains contact with Terra, they find that the Ordo Hereticus and Ordo Sicarius has been formed, and the powers of the Ecclesiarchy reigned in.
The Waning - Probably the only time in Imperial history post-heresy where they were actually running out of soldiers because grim dark future only war. But it's all right though, as peeps like Solar Macharius go all Alexander the Great and everyone and launches the furthest extent of Imperial Space, which continues pretty much until Nids arrive and start eating the Eastern Fringe... Literally. No warp storms so great Macharian crusade is possible.
The one key thing common to everything is when humans can see the "light of the Astronomicon" or not. On the symbolic sense, as long as it's seen it's proof of the Emperor's vision and on the logistical sense it means you're still in communication with the rest of the Imperium and so if something comes to eat your brains, you can hail for help and help will arrive. (Unless you get cut off from the Astronomicon by nids). It is pretty much impossible to secede within the light of the Astronomicon and not have a gorillion inquisitors and strike troopers arrive questioning your motives with swords of damocles' hanging over your head. Hence why it takes warp storms or chaos to plunge the Imperium into intergalactic strife, it's the only way short of necron/tyranid stuff to cut off the Imperium's lines of communication and transit
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.
My take on them is that they're not best as naive race as you can only pull that card so much, but best as the race *mostly* but not quite disconnected from the warp. You can't be tricked by DE every day into cultural exchanges, so they have to have some character development into something more - hence why their Orwellian, Separatist Enclaves, Xenos Absorption and gradual interaction with the wider galaxy is a step in the right direction (whenever GW is walking forward, even if at a snail's pace).
Relevant!:
I'll argue that the defining characteristic - the one thing that sets Tau apart from everything else in the 40k Universe is their separation from the warp. Since a lot of the Pariah fluff got fucked by Ward with Newcrons the Tau are really the only chunk of lore peeps with a disconnect from the warp. Sure this means their Empire is very tiny (VERY TINY) since they can't warp spam like the Imperium, but this also makes for some interesting possibilities.
Who cares about pragmatic Tau when you can have a story about a pragmatic space elf, space human, space ork or space spooky metal skellington? But what about instead, a story where you have a Tau soldier in his Hindu/Orwellian/Nippon society trying to grasp his head around warp spookiness? Some of the best Blueberry stories I've read have had more potential than quality, but the potential has been limitless. Like that one story where the Tau diplomat realizes what the Warp is and how close to it humans are, rendering him insane in the manner of a Lovecraftian revelation of (FUCK MY LIFE). Or that one where the Kroot, Tau and Imperials sit around having bants and eating brains blissfully unaware that one of the humies is possessed, where shenanigens ensue? Or one of my favourite - one where some blueberries roll on in and their krootbros nom on some cultists. The tau officer in charge sees terrible damage in one of the Tau colonies, and the survivors tell only of some terrible General known as Slaanesh as having been there. The Tau officer gets all patriotic and reserves himself to kill the great Slaanesh in revenge, running down and setting up a great big ambush as his pathfinders see the enemy approach. Hilarity ensues when the Kroot that nommed the cultists join the Slaaneshi and the Tau officer mistakes a Noisy marine for Slaanesh and proudly declares he has killed the great Slaanesh and the planet is confirmed as cursed after the fighting, as you don't leave after fighting that many tentacles with an unscarred mental state.
Best example of all has to be in Dark Crusade, I believe it is, where one of the Chaos bros does warp fuckery to get inside his enemies' heads and taunt them. He does that with the Blueberry commander and the Blueberry commander just begins irritatingly telling whoever it is making that static to turn off their microphone. Fucking hilarious. The Tau detachment from the warp is something the humans only have with Pariahs, only the Tau have it without being social pariahs.
Consider that this is the direction GW is taking the Tau - they have indeed pretty much played the naive card as much as possible. Tried diplo-annexing the Imperium of man (hahahaha, what) got Damocles Crusade. Tried diplomacy Necrons (rofl soi soi soi), got harvested. Tried diplomacy with tyranids (??
?!), got harvested. Tried diplomacy with Dark Eldar (laffin), got cultural exchanged. Tried diplomacy with Orks (worth a shot), didn't work because they wanted dakka. Gave the Orks dakka. Orks declare waaaagh! on Tau with new dakka. Ethereals declare them "lost causes". The funniest one has to be when the Tau chase after the Dark Eldar after yet another raid, where the Dark Eldar lead the Tau into an exodite world and slip away. The Tau, believing Exodite Eldar to be Dark Eldar, take out their anger on their "enemy." No survivors. The Tau are learning :
D (They just need their own Ordo Xenos at this point to correctly identify their Eldar from their Dark Eldar, their humans from their soon to be possessed lovecraftian pile of tentacles).
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.
Yes there is, there was no luck involved in the Emperor's creation, it was the result of mass ritual self-sacrifice of the shamans.
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'.
There is little right, all factions have their heroes and redeeming qualities. Literally all of them, even Chaos and Dark Eldar. But there is; there is for example, little moral difference between the Eldar attempting to reclaim their Empire and the Imperium trying to maintain theirs, they've got the same reasons of trying to look after their own and prevent their extinction amidst a hostile Universe, the only thing that's different is team colours. That and the Eldar birthed a fucking chaos god gg scrubs
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 :/).
The Tau logistical capability is astronomically inferior to the Imperium and their whole Empire could fit inside Ultramar, a handful of Hive worlds could outnumber the Tau species. A permanent alliance with the Tau Empire offers the Imperium nothing of value and would only be used to justify the continued existence of the Tau species, and their pleasurable civilian lifestyles are wholly incompatible with psykers. The only xenos that would offer a powerful alliance with the Imperium are the Eldar or Necrons, and understandably they're the two species humanity has already taken the most influence/jacked the most shit from, whether it be human attempts to take over/build human extensions to the Eldar webway, "Cadian" pylons or pariahs and psykers. And there'll be no permanent alliance between the three because they all occupy the same niches and are all existential threats to one another in the long term.
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.
Too slow; again the Armageddon mobilization is proof just how outclassed the Tau are on the logistical front:
67 Regiments and 17 battalions of Guardsmen, 18 companies of storm troopers, 12 penal legions, 9 batteries of artillery, 3 Regiments of Ogryns and 3 tank legions were sent by guardsmen from other systems. Couple that with the 23 chapters of space marines, the 10 companies of SOBs, the 7 Titan Legions, 4 Ordinatus Machines and 14 Skitarii regiments sent - sending all this war materiel across 6 times the length of the whole Tau Empire without losing lines of communication with their origin points.
When you can mobilize resources from across the entire galaxy reliably there is no contest at all, consider how quickly the Imperium diverted their resources from the Damocles Crusade, to Armageddon, to Cadia, to the Hive Fleets and Necron awakenings e.t.c. whilst the Tau struggle to defend against Dark Eldar raids upon border worlds under the watch of Sept worlds, or how the Tau must expand in spheres because their lines of communication and logistical transportation are limited by realspace
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.
Compare how the Tau fire-caste sacrifice themselves for the greater good, whilst the Imperial Guard die standing for the Emperor. The Tau fight to be greater, mankind humbles itself in fighting, not necessarily even fighting for any reason beyond survival anymore. The Tau make notions that they are working towards some greater goal when they commit their atrocities, working towards equality when they subjugate; the Imperium adopts no false pretenses as to their intentions. Think about what it means to be human in the Imperium. You may work on an angri-world, a damn near paradise just ploughing the fields in your battle-tractor chassis doing honest work, venerating the Emperor, praying that the end times don't come to your planet so your kids in the PDF aren't called to fight against immortal warlords using nothing more than autoguns and faith. Or to be some kid whose grown up in a Hive World, whose parents saved up all their credits to send you off to learn how to become an adept - you'll spend your life meticulously devoted to the pursuit of inconsistencies or errors in tithe records, archives and you'll become one more pencil-pusher amidst the limitless bureaucracy of the Imperium, but it's work that has to be done by someone and it's better than dying face down in a ditch trying to mug credits for warpdust in the underhive. Or to be an Imperial Guardsman, sent tens of thousands of light years away from home, your fate in the hands of Navy officers and Pencil pushers. You're defending some world called Agrellan from some hyper advanced xenos invaders, so it's business as usual and have orders to press on. They're deploying some rapid-firing plasma weapons that are mowing down all your comrades but you have orders, and damn it you're not going to fail them even if you think your boss sucks, you're going to press on or die standing.
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