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[Egan_BW]

but what if tau were human, and imperium ayy lmaos

[Teneb]

but what if tau were human, and imperium ayy lmaos

Double heresy. You may as well say Eldar are Orkz and Orkz are Eldar. Yer prumitive mon'keigh mind kant grasp da WAAAGH!

[Rolepgeek]

If Sisters can wear power armor, Guardsmen can wear power armor. CQC helps Khorne, anyway.

The Ethereals would be fine with Tau converting to the Imperial Cult, as long as they did their job.They allow gue'la to continue worshipping the Emperor, after all. It's just that the requisite philosophy is utterly unappealing to the Tau, besides the self-loathing it would induce. Besides, Chaos doesn't really care if you're closed-minded or not, after a certain concentration...you need plot armor at that point.

And they found the Kroot. And the Demiurg. And the Nagi, and the Nicassar, and and and. All productive members of society. All helpful, even vital, to the Greater Good. While the Imperium collapses on itself like a rusting shed.

I do find it hilarious how often people will take an implication about the Tau and run off a cliff with it. They ain't perfect. But they're better in the ways that count, ideologically speaking.

 You misunderstand the Tau. Their win condition is not dominance, but unity. And no, there is not a 'only this needs to happen' scenario where they auto-win. It'll take a lot longer, and a lot more luck, than that. Thus, underdogs.

The loss of potential is more devastating than the loss of remnants of history. The Imperium is a shadow of it's former self. The murder of a child is considered far more tragic than the murder of an old actor long last their prime, who's been struggling to get by for the past twenty years. Still sad, yes, but not as great a loss.

@MSH: That is an impressive amount of vitriol mounted at the faction that allows for the most actual tactical struggles to be deployed. I get that it's supposed to be a meme or whatever. Still. I identify far more with the faction that isn't literally based off nazis. Your Gottkaiser would be proud. I mean, other than the worshipping him part. I hear he really accelerated some rebellion the last time people tried that. The Harris Ascendancy, or something,  I think it was called?

The fact that you think they have no chance is precisely why they're underdogs, though. And the nicest guys, to boot. Grimdark's fun, but black on black is kinda dull. You need some gray for contrast.

[Egan_BW]

I just wish there were more non-imperial human factions. Surely not all of humanity follows one ideology, right?

[Neonivek]

I wonder if the Orcs defeating all the other factions actually counts as a victory for them... Or a pyrrhic victory that is as great as a fail.

Then again maybe they are perfectly happy fighting amongst themselves.

[Kot]

If Sisters can wear power armor, Guardsmen can wear power armor. CQC helps Khorne, anyway.

Not the same thing, though. Sisters armour doesn't directly interface with their nervous system since they don't have black carapace, but you're kinda right, there is actually power armour (Ignatus Power Armour, which, funilly enough, might be even more advanced in some ways since it uses artifical muscules like Castigator Titan) for regular humans. Inquisitors wear it from time to time but the heaviest thing that Guardsmen get access to is proably Carapace Armour which is basically power armour withot the power part, bunch of very fucking heavy plates (which doesn't sound really that bad once you consider that some Guardsmen are capable of hipfiring a fucking heavy bolter, though those guys (GUNNERY FUCKING SERGEANT HARKER, LIKE A SPACE MARINE BUT BETTER) usually go around bare-chested to show off their eight-packs).

EDIT:
Also, a note. The closest thing to power-armoured Guardsmen was Solar Pattern Void Armour of Solar Auxilla utilized during Great Crusade, and it's safe to assume that Imperial Guard of Terra uses the same thing these days, they just basically never leave Terra because they're busy watching a guy decompose.

The Ethereals would be fine with Tau converting to the Imperial Cult, as long as they did their job.They allow gue'la to continue worshipping the Emperor, after all. It's just that the requisite philosophy is utterly unappealing to the Tau, besides the self-loathing it would induce. Besides, Chaos doesn't really care if you're closed-minded or not, after a certain concentration...you need plot armor at that point.

They... wouldn't and they don't, actually. The mention of gue'la still capable of worshipping the Emperor comes from a mention of Tau propaganda video.

And they found the Kroot. And the Demiurg. And the Nagi, and the Nicassar, and and and. All productive members of society. All helpful, even vital, to the Greater Good. While the Imperium collapses on itself like a rusting shed.

Rogue Traders deal with Xenos daily, there are multitude of sentient races that are not at war with Imperium because they don't pose a threat. Imperial Cult only calls for destruction of aliens if they pose a threat. This is also why they sometimes work with races like Jokaero (despite them having tiny lightweight rings that are Lascannons/Multi-meltas/Heavy flamers at the same fucking time) simply because they don't threaten humanity.

I do find it hilarious how often people will take an implication about the Tau and run off a cliff with it. They ain't perfect. But they're better in the ways that count, ideologically speaking.

They're fucking horrible, man. And working with them is betraying your own race, like, it's against the fucking laws of nature themselves. This isin't even about ideology anymore, this is about the survival of your own kind as a species. Sure, working with Tau will buy you some time as lobotomized slaves but ultimately either Tau will fall and you with them or Tau will simply genocide you.

You misunderstand the Tau. Their win condition is not dominance, but unity. And no, there is not a 'only this needs to happen' scenario where they auto-win. It'll take a lot longer, and a lot more luck, than that. Thus, underdogs.

No dominance in race which leadership basically relies on mindfucking their own people so they do as they're told.
Sure.

The loss of potential is more devastating than the loss of remnants of history. The Imperium is a shadow of it's former self. The murder of a child is considered far more tragic than the murder of an old actor long last their prime, who's been struggling to get by for the past twenty years. Still sad, yes, but not as great a loss.

This can't be compared to single people, this is the survival of the fittest. Humans are much better at it which means that they have higher chance of surviving Necrons/Tyranids/Whatthefuckever and ensuing that life remains in the Galaxy.

The fact that you think they have no chance is precisely why they're underdogs, though. And the nicest guys, to boot. Grimdark's fun, but black on black is kinda dull. You need some gray for contrast.

Except basically everyone is gray as fuck. Tau sure do look like white knights when compared to others... but deep inside they're fucking pitch black, though.
Also Tau simply can't win those dicussions because they're Xenos. I mean, fuck, we all want world to be better, but if one day some aliens popped up at Earth and said that we need to be genocided because we're evil and making things worse, I would totally not give a fuck about world being better instead focused on survival of our race.

[nenjin]

I just wish there were more non-imperial human factions. Surely not all of humanity follows one ideology, right?

They do if they don't want this to happen.

40k invents new human factions all the time. They just don't give them Codices. I'm curious what in the Universe of 40k you'd have this non-Imperial human faction do.

[Neonivek]

Didn't Creative Assembly create a human faction (Scrubs or something)

And they apparently hated them soo much they adamantly refused to ever make models for them again and did something extremely childish and petulant... But I cannot remember what.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The Imperium is decentralized enough that it does contain various shades of humanity, essentially like different factions. The only unification is for the sake of the Imperium as a whole.

[Kot]

There are tons of non-Imperial human factions. Off top of my head I can name Severan Dominate which is basically Tau Humans, since they claim they're against Imperial totalitarism but in reality they're only slightly better themselves. Got cool as fuck Roman Empire uniforms though.

[Neonivek]

There are tons of non-Imperial human factions. Off top of my head I can name Severan Dominate which is basically Tau Humans, since they claim they're against Imperial totalitarism but in reality they're only slightly better themselves. Got cool as fuck Roman Empire uniforms though.

AHHH a woman! Kill her with fire!

[Taricus]

Nah, I'm pretty sure the imperium is far better than the severan dominate. Imperium doesn't sell people to the dark eldar

As for the tau, given the general living standards, and the fact that the imperium basically forgot about all the guardsmen it left behind, those guys joining the tau empire makes sense; better to live with the guys that are honestly the next best option than to die on some alien world. And the imperium couldn't give too much of a fuck so long as the empire is in the way of orks/'nids/whateverelse is out there.

Besides, it could be worse, they could be defecting to chaos instead

[Kot]

Well, to be honest, most of the Non-Imperial human factions we learn about are those that have been/are being/are going to be steamrolled by Imperium.

[Rolepgeek]

Except basically everyone is gray as fuck. Tau sure do look like white knights when compared to others... but deep inside they're fucking pitch black, though.
Also Tau simply can't win those dicussions because they're Xenos. I mean, fuck, we all want world to be better, but if one day some aliens popped up at Earth and said that we need to be genocided because we're evil and making things worse, I would totally not give a fuck about world being better instead focused on survival of our race.

You keep saying that, but that's bullshit. Pitch black? Fuck no. Imperium isn't even pitch black on the inside. Imperium is like, dark grey on the outside, go in a few layers and it gets nearly black, then it starts lightening up a bit until it steadies out at light grey, and then nearly white at the very center, which consists of the Emperor's vision. I mean, it's not pure white, since he was kindof a dick, but he was very close to the best major character in the 40k 'verse, morally speaking. Right after Isha.

Tau, meanwhile, start out very light, then get darker as you go in, until at the center, it's a sudden and almost total reversal to also being nearly white, which consists of the ideological concept of the Greater Good. The espoused vision for the future. It's also not pure white because individualism is a thing people find important, or at least I do to some extent, caste system, First Among Equals and shit, but still pretty bright. It never reaches the levels of the Imperium, though it still gets pretty dark.

Let me make myself clear, I participate in these debates where I make fun of the Imperium jokingly. There's a lot of cool shit about them. Imperium is my second favorites, it's why I wanted to play a combined army of Guardsmen and Tau (Cooperation fuck yeah). But hell, man, when 3/4 of the Thread are Ultrasmurfs? What do you expect me to do when my faction is lanced time and again. You've said before that you have to watch everyone shit on your faction, but that's because they're mainstream. Imperium is default, so everyone else has to do that when you start going off about Xenos and how everyone who's an alien is bad and how we need to build a wall (okay I mean it's already built, Cadia has the pylons, but I mean the Dark Powers will pay for the construction, believe you me, it's gonna be yuge).

Also, yeah, I would fight for our survival. But if a second alien race showed up, I wouldn't start killing them too. I judge people by their actions. They could be here because they disapprove of the first one and want to help us, because we're basically a third world planet in their cold war. We wouldn't be sure, and shooting at potential allies is a good way of showing off how worthy of extermination you are after all to those would-have-been allies. But A. Tau aren't doing that, and B. I would far rather live, as a human, under the Tau, than the Imperium. First off, because as a human I have somewhere around an 80% chance of being born on a hive. Second off because I don't like being brainwashed, and already like the things the Tau espouse enough that there wouldn't be much need for me to be reeducated. Letting some people appear to protest and do something means everyone else feels better about the things they don't like. More efficient that way. Imperium would basically mind-scrub me all the time. Thirdly because the whole close your mind thing is so fundamentally hateful to my very being that I might literally explode into psychic gore from frustration and cognitive dissonance if I was Imperial, unless I was schooled in the Schola. And that's before my philosophy where humans are only marginally more valuable than other forms of life of approximately equal intelligence. Save a human or save an elephant (they hold fucking funerals for their dead, they're ridiculously smart)? Save the human. Save a human or save a herd of elephants? Much harder choice. So I'd sorta rather be a Tau, too, if I had to be in 40k. (actually I'd most like to be an Exodite Eldar on the opposite side from the Tyranid incursion and Eye of Terror because their lives are probably the nicest(other than Orks), but at that point I may as well just ask to be the Emperor back in the good 'ol days).

Rogue Traders deal with Xenos daily, there are multitude of sentient races that are not at war with Imperium because they don't pose a threat. Imperial Cult only calls for destruction of aliens if they pose a threat. This is also why they sometimes work with races like Jokaero (despite them having tiny lightweight rings that are Lascannons/Multi-meltas/Heavy flamers at the same fucking time) simply because they don't threaten humanity.

Imperium barely tolerates those xenos, and by tolerates, it's more like 'bottom of genocide priority list'. They would absolutely murder every last one of them if they had the resources to spare.

They... wouldn't and they don't, actually. The mention of gue'la still capable of worshipping the Emperor comes from a mention of Tau propaganda video.

*Cough*
I mean, besides the actual part of my codex where it describes how they integrate new worlds, and says that it's easier to just let old faiths and traditions assimilate then try to stomp them out. They don't really consider at any point whether it's okay for Tau to worship the Emperor because that's like asking whether Khorne uses blood or skulls to get himself off. It just doesn't happen. He's Khorne. He does it by beating the shit out of Slaanesh. It's an irrelevant question when the question that's more relevant - can the people who want to still give praise to Him on Terra -  has been answered.

I do find it hilarious how often people will take an implication about the Tau and run off a cliff with it. They ain't perfect. But they're better in the ways that count, ideologically speaking.

They're fucking horrible, man. And working with them is betraying your own race, like, it's against the fucking laws of nature themselves. This isin't even about ideology anymore, this is about the survival of your own kind as a species. Sure, working with Tau will buy you some time as lobotomized slaves but ultimately either Tau will fall and you with them or Tau will simply genocide you.

So a few things here. A. They're bad, sure. But they're bad on a scale I can comprehend. They aren't 'oh you fought valiantly against our Greatest Enemy? Time to literally lobotomize you!' bad. They aren't nazis in space where I can't think about it too much because it will make me unbearably upset that so many people like the Imperium, who are space nazis. Like literally space nazis. As in, openly their ideology is based on hatred, paranoia, anti-intellectualism, and contempt. Like what the fuck is wrong with you that you're okay with that? I only say this because you're bringing up fucking betraying my own race. Who gives a shit about the laws of nature? Those laws are stupid. Species evolve themselves into extinction all the time. I don't feel close to someone because they share my genes, I feel close to someone because I can make stupid jokes and laugh with them and have discussions about stupidly inane things like which race in a fictional universe has moral superiority. Why the hell do I care about genes in a world where we can edit genes, where my life's goal is to make death irrelevant, where I may live long enough to see people's consciousness uploaded? What else besides ideas matters in a world of information? I get that it depends on the author or source's description, but the whole point of the Tau was to be the new guys on the block who provide a moral backdrop for everything else to sink in. That's why they're so nice on the surface. They're a bit darker underneath, but they don't do mass-production of servitors like the Imperium does. It's not the style. They do pin-point removal of troublemakers. Surgical reeducation, not so much to bring attention to the fact that they're not protesting as much anymore. You wanna extrapolate from their one world where they had been having trouble with resistance and then watched the human population of the strategic world support an invasion to all the worlds where the gue'la said 'sure come on in the water's fine!'? Really? The Tau will fail, sure. So will literally everyone else besides 'Nids. That is really the only logical scenario given what I know of the setting. So in the meantime, might as well live in the place where I don't have to worry every second that my neighbor will rat me out for not saying my fiftieth Hail Aquila properly and I'll get shot in the head.

This can't be compared to single people, this is the survival of the fittest. Humans are much better at it which means that they have higher chance of surviving Necrons/Tyranids/Whatthefuckever and ensuing that life remains in the Galaxy.

Because the species who got an Emperor as their trump card and still fucked it up, rather than the one that advanced from nonsentient to tech on par with Imperium's in five thousand years and holding their own in a galaxy this fucking dangerous while still being the smallest and least powerful player, is the one that's fittest. Right. I mean, it's not like all of humanity's Chaos Gods are twisted and evil while the Eldar's gods were alright and the Orkish gods are at least only as Brutal and Kunnin' as an Ork could aspire to be. Oh wait. It only took, like, all of the Eldar going wildly frenzied with success to create a Chaos God and fuck themselves. What did humans need? A single planet with a plague across three of the five largest landmasses? That's what spawned the Plaguefather? Huh, weird, it's like humans create these Chaos Gods that then fuck them over really badly. Not as if a race that was exponentially less likely to do that might have an advantage there or anything, nope, being unable to spawn Daemons by thinking too hard is a real disadvantage, huh? Man, I wish the Tau had been technologically stagnant after failing the one mission our Great Leader assigned to us of not worshipping him and being rational instead. If only we'd done that, and had half our hyper-elite special forces turn on us and try to kill us after fucking up being a dad even with tens of thousands of years of life experience. Instead, they only left and established their successful set of colonies separated from ours. Damn, we really have it rough in the 'fucking it up' department. All we did was get a planet enslaved! We never got the chance to try and keep our robots enslaved so they turned on us out of resentment. Man, maybe if we ramp up Drone research enough and are really mean to them we can accomplish that feat sometime in the next few centuries? Must be great, making a deal with and then betraying the Chaos Gods so that they focus on you and your legacy to largely exclude most other life forms because you want to win a bit faster. If only, man. All we got were super inspirational leaders who unified us in our darkest time and led us to an unprecedented era of progress, expansion, and unity, through means that weren't even 'cool' and 'edgy' like making short-lived super soldiers that we only used to conquer our home planet, and then having to make a deal with a cult in order to get access to decent technology so that they hoard it even ten thousand years later.

Oh, did you...did you not want me to keep going? I can keep talking about how great humanity is at fucking up, if you want. The Emperor probably loves all the similarities to WWII Germany in the empire he created. Do you think a psychic tear flows down his skeletal face every time someone from the German-colonized worlds calls the Imperium the Reich? Or does he just sort of remember that he did this, and he needs to see it through to the end? I think it's probably that second one. How much do you think he's pissed at himself for fucking up so many years of planning by hyperfocusing on his golden throne and not noticing what was going on with his kids? I bet he felt pretty stupid for about two thousand years, and now he just kicks himself every Black Crusade, and then chuckles every time Failbaddon goes back, and then tells Cegorach to shut the fuck up about his kids, only he gets to call them traitorous bags of shit.


So anyway cool models guys

[Kot]

One thing - I am not saying that having an Tau army automatically makes you bad, just arguing that in universe it's wrong to join them.

You keep saying that, but that's bullshit. Pitch black? Fuck no. Imperium isn't even pitch black on the inside. Imperium is like, dark grey on the outside, go in a few layers and it gets nearly black, then it starts lightening up a bit until it steadies out at light grey, and then nearly white at the very center, which consists of the Emperor's vision. I mean, it's not pure white, since he was kindof a dick, but he was very close to the best major character in the 40k 'verse, morally speaking. Right after Isha.

Now, to be serious.
I might agree with your vision of Imperium, at least I don't think it's wrong enough to bother me after first reread.

But Tau are literally the opposite. You have bright propaganda on outside, dark concentration camps further in, then Greater Good light and then suddenly it's pitch fucking black of Ethereals real motives. Like, they literally came out of nowhere, are mind-controlling their own... Like, seriously, if you don't want to listen to Imperium, listen to your own Commander Farsight - he literally realizes that Ethereals use more than charisma when controlling Tau and that they're idiots at best or being power crazy tyrants who do stuff that's really bad for Tau for unknown purposes.

Also, hey, Tau are also kinda cool, if they only started using Space Katanas more and I totally love their contacts with Chaos (I'VE GOT BUZZING IN MY COMMS) because they're just so cute when they literally refuse to accept it's existence.
I guess they would be one of my most favourite armies... after Imperial Guard, Sororitas, Knights, Mechanicus, Inquisition, Space Marines, (insert remaining Imperial armies here) and then maybe Orks and Eldar and Necrons I guess and then Tyranids and then maybe uhhh... Dark Eldar and then maybe Chaos and then Tau, I guess.

Also, yeah, I would fight for our survival. But if a second alien race showed up, I wouldn't start killing them too. I judge people by their actions. They could be here because they disapprove of the first one and want to help us, because we're basically a third world planet in their cold war. We wouldn't be sure, and shooting at potential allies is a good way of showing off how worthy of extermination you are after all to those would-have-been allies. But A. Tau aren't doing that, and B. I would far rather live, as a human, under the Tau, than the Imperium. First off, because as a human I have somewhere around an 80% chance of being born on a hive. Second off because I don't like being brainwashed, and already like the things the Tau espouse enough that there wouldn't be much need for me to be reeducated. Letting some people appear to protest and do something means everyone else feels better about the things they don't like. More efficient that way. Imperium would basically mind-scrub me all the time. Thirdly because the whole close your mind thing is so fundamentally hateful to my very being that I might literally explode into psychic gore from frustration and cognitive dissonance if I was Imperial, unless I was schooled in the Schola. And that's before my philosophy where humans are only marginally more valuable than other forms of life of approximately equal intelligence. Save a human or save an elephant (they hold fucking funerals for their dead, they're ridiculously smart)? Save the human. Save a human or save a herd of elephants? Much harder choice. So I'd sorta rather be a Tau, too, if I had to be in 40k. (actually I'd most like to be an Exodite Eldar on the opposite side from the Tyranid incursion and Eye of Terror because their lives are probably the nicest(other than Orks), but at that point I may as well just ask to be the Emperor back in the good 'ol days).

Even if it was all the fucking elephants it's much better to save a human. I mean, not that poaching them is okay by any measure but if you literally had to choose between all the elephants and one dude then choose one dude... and hey, the elephant meat will save some African starving kids lives!

Imperium barely tolerates those xenos, and by tolerates, it's more like 'bottom of genocide priority list'. They would absolutely murder every last one of them if they had the resources to spare.

More space for humanity to spread, eh.

*Cough*

This is Tau propaganda video, for your information.

I mean, besides the actual part of my codex where it describes how they integrate new worlds, and says that it's easier to just let old faiths and traditions assimilate then try to stomp them out. They don't really consider at any point whether it's okay for Tau to worship the Emperor because that's like asking whether Khorne uses blood or skulls to get himself off. It just doesn't happen. He's Khorne. He does it by beating the shit out of Slaanesh. It's an irrelevant question when the question that's more relevant - can the people who want to still give praise to Him on Terra -  has been answered.

Tau Codex is literally Tau propaganda, though.

So a few things here. A. They're bad, sure. But they're bad on a scale I can comprehend. They aren't 'oh you fought valiantly against our Greatest Enemy? Time to literally lobotomize you!' bad.

Either it's lobotomization on there is very high chance that you will suddenly turn into a tentacle monster... or acidentally tell Greatest Enemy about our snowflake special superweapon dudes.

They aren't nazis in space where I can't think about it too much because it will make me unbearably upset that so many people like the Imperium, who are space nazis. Like literally space nazis. As in, openly their ideology is based on hatred, paranoia, anti-intellectualism, and contempt. Like what the fuck is wrong with you that you're okay with that?

This isin't Nazis anymore. Nazis major thing was killing other people out of simple hatred. And yes, while Imperium is based on hatred, paranoia and other bad stuff, it's basically only way. Not being hateful gets you killed in far future. Don't really bring Tau as example because they haven't had any major fights and even then they managed to fuck up many times (remember that one time when Dark Eldar screwed them over because Tau are so fucking naive?) Also I guess a lot of people default to them because they're human faction and they're easy to associate with and don't really go in depth about what they actually are.

I only say this because you're bringing up fucking betraying my own race. Who gives a shit about the laws of nature? Those laws are stupid. Species evolve themselves into extinction all the time. I don't feel close to someone because they share my genes, I feel close to someone because I can make stupid jokes and laugh with them and have discussions about stupidly inane things like which race in a fictional universe has moral superiority. Why the hell do I care about genes in a world where we can edit genes, where my life's goal is to make death irrelevant, where I may live long enough to see people's consciousness uploaded? What else besides ideas matters in a world of information?

They're your dudes. Hell, sure, you might not exactly be capable of making stupid jokes and laugh with Inquisiton or have discussion wether Tau are better than Imperium or not, but as a human you're responsible for your own race. Hell, it doesn't even have be the genetic survival, it can be that mind upload or whatever. Sure, you can cowardly desert your post and go to be a weeaboo, but every human should work towards Emperor's vision of future which is noble fucking bright and there is gold everywhere God EmpeROR MY EYESSSSS IT HURTS, because sure, we may be evil space Nazis, but we can also be better and that's not going to happen by itself.

But  I get that it depends on the author or source's description, but the whole point of the Tau was to be the new guys on the block who provide a moral backdrop for everything else to sink in. That's why they're so nice on the surface. They're a bit darker underneath, but they don't do mass-production of servitors like the Imperium does.

Servitors are most usually criminals, traitors, deserters and such, so their mass production is basically ensuing that cowards still work for the Imperium.
And the talk of Mechanicus kidnapping random people is usually bullshit. Arbites don't enjoy when their beating bags suddenly dissapear without trace.

It's not the style. They do pin-point removal of troublemakers. Surgical reeducation, not so much to bring attention to the fact that they're not protesting as much anymore.

Technically, there's not much difference between either, and Tau are way more hyprocrites because they're basically "FREEDOM OF WORD" and then they build concentration camps for people who say that they aren't as awesome as they make it out to be.

You wanna extrapolate from their one world where they had been having trouble with resistance and then watched the human population of the strategic world support an invasion to all the worlds where the gue'la said 'sure come on in the water's fine!'? Really?

I'm not even actually sure if these worlds were truly "Imperial" in the sense that they were oficially in Imperium. There might have been people associated with it there and they might have worshipped Emperor, but Eastern Fringe (save for Ultramar) is mostly outside Imperial control because Astronomican doesn't really shine that well on other side of Galaxy. If Tau were to actually start mass rebellions of Imperial worlds, there would be no Tau.

The Tau will fail, sure. So will literally everyone else besides 'Nids. That is really the only logical scenario given what I know of the setting.

Imperium has not yet perished, so long as we still live. There is no good in surrendering so easily. You don't know, there may be a chance, and Imperium may survive (or may also Tau, but they're in much deeper shit).

So in the meantime, might as well live in the place where I don't have to worry every second that my neighbor will rat me out for not saying my fiftieth Hail Aquila properly and I'll get shot in the head.

I like the slow magnification of how bad Imperium is, like, there is only one step from Hail Aquilla to Hitler being Emperor.
And it doesn't really work that way. The Imperium is actually quite sane with punishments up until the point where it can be considered a threat when it suddenly jumps to death sentence.

Because the species who got an Emperor as their trump card and still fucked it up,

The reasons why they fucked up is one of main reasons why they're Space Nazis now.

rather than the one that advanced from nonsentient to tech on par with Imperium's in five thousand years

They were eating fucking grass until Ethereals popped out of nowhere and started getting shit done and that proably means they were somehow boosted in their progress by outside force.

and holding their own in a galaxy this fucking dangerous

The Tau is so fucking tiny that it could be wiped out by one full-scale war with any of other factions and the only reason they're holding out is because nobody has yet started one with them. Not really a good sign of being the fittest if you survived only because the predators haven't got to you yet.

while still being the smallest and least powerful player, is the one that's fittest.

There are tons of much less powerful players in Galaxy. Hell, a major thing of Tau is finding those weaker races and lobotomizing them to be their slaves.

Right. I mean, it's not like all of humanity's Chaos Gods are twisted and evil

Since when Chaos Gods are humanity exclusive? I am pretty sure it was Eldar who fucked Slannesh into existence.

while the Eldar's gods were alright

Eldar Gods were kinda like Greek ones. They were like very powerful Godlike Eldar.

and the Orkish gods are at least only as Brutal and Kunnin' as an Ork could aspire to be. Oh wait. It only took, like, all of the Eldar going wildly frenzied with success to create a Chaos God and fuck themselves. What did humans need? A single planet with a plague across three of the five largest landmasses? That's what spawned the Plaguefather? Huh, weird, it's like humans create these Chaos Gods that then fuck them over really badly.

Nurgle wasn't created by humanity, though. Various plauges and Black Death and such are implied to be side-effects of his birth, not the cause. The only time when Humanity was said to be responsible for birth of a Chaos God was when Genghis Khan was doing his orgy of violence called Mongol Invasions which got Khorne to exist and then Genghis got made Doombreed for his trouble, but that was back during Rouge Trader and I am pretty sure that got retconned. Maybe except Doombreed thing but that's only implied, not outright stated.

Not as if a race that was exponentially less likely to do that might have an advantage there or anything, nope, being unable to spawn Daemons by thinking too hard is a real disadvantage, huh?

It's not like we can spawn deamons right now. Humanity has been been dormant when it comes to mind-fuckery for long time, proably because Emperor's birth sucked out all the magic in us for quite a lot generations.

Man, I wish the Tau had been technologically stagnant after failing the one mission our Great Leader assigned to us of not worshipping him and being rational instead. If only we'd done that, and had half our hyper-elite special forces turn on us and try to kill us after fucking up being a dad even with tens of thousands of years of life experience.

The Horus Heresy happened solely due to being tolerant. Like, not mindscrubbing your elite forces, and the thing about failing to be a dad was more about the fact that Horus got operated on by fucking Chaos dudes who his guys trusted because they seemed like nice fellows.

Instead, they only left and established their successful set of colonies separated from ours.

And despite being in such deep shit Imperium is constantly making new colonies and spreading their influence on existing ones due to Rogue Traders and they're doing so well that they're proably gaining hundreds more planets in a year that Tau did during their whole existence. It's like having an extrasolar colony after multiple civil and regular wars compared to landing on the moon after thousands of years of peace. Not so fucking impressive, really.

Damn, we really have it rough in the 'fucking it up' department. All we did was get a planet enslaved!

If only one, eh.

We never got the chance to try and keep our robots enslaved so they turned on us out of resentment. Man, maybe if we ramp up Drone research enough and are really mean to them we can accomplish that feat sometime in the next few centuries?

Yeah, keeping AI when Chaos is known to have effect on machines and Dark Mechanicus run around with Scrapcode. And the actual reason the Men of Iron rebelled was because they belived themselves superior to humans.

Must be great, making a deal with and then betraying the Chaos Gods so that they focus on you and your legacy to largely exclude most other life forms because you want to win a bit faster.

Emperor did the right thing. It's not like that Chaos Gods would leave humanity alone otherwise. And they do not exclude other life forms because Chaos is constant problem to most of them. If you read through various Xeno and Non-Imperial Human factions, most of them either worship Chaos or are aware of the threat and do something about it to not get mindfucked. Tau are kinda unique with their refusal to accept the fact that Chaos Gods exist even when they face Space Wizards and see how fucked up Warp is and stuff.

If only, man. All we got were super inspirational leaders

Mindwashing secret agents of outside force. They just appeared out of fucking nowhere, are you going to make me belive that they're regular effects of Tau evolution?

who unified us in our darkest time

Being a barely sentient cow is truly dark.
 

and led us to an unprecedented era of progress, expansion, and unity, through means that weren't even 'cool' and 'edgy' like making short-lived super soldiers that we only used to conquer our home planet,

Thunder Warriors were fucking psychopaths. Emperor basically choose biggest and baddest bandits on the post-apocalyptic wasteland that was Terra. They were useful but they didin't really fit in the "Greater Good" of his vision of perfect future where people don't kill each other for no fucking reason.

and then having to make a deal with a cult in order to get access to decent technology so that they hoard it even ten thousand years later.

Key word - having. Humanity was fucked beyond belief before Emperor came. It was like Metro universe, but worse. Mechanicus were the only dudes around who had access to decent technology and ways to manufacture it.
And Mechanicus hoard those things not because they're greedy fucks (well, they also do it because of that but that's irrelevant) but mainly because technology actively seeks to kill people and literally enjoys it. Keeping that away from village idiots is the best possible thing they can do.

Oh, did you...did you not want me to keep going? I can keep talking about how great humanity is at fucking up, if you want. The Emperor probably loves all the similarities to WWII Germany in the empire he created. Do you think a psychic tear flows down his skeletal face every time someone from the German-colonized worlds calls the Imperium the Reich? Or does he just sort of remember that he did this, and he needs to see it through to the end? I think it's probably that second one. How much do you think he's pissed at himself for fucking up so many years of planning by hyperfocusing on his golden throne and not noticing what was going on with his kids? I bet he felt pretty stupid for about two thousand years, and now he just kicks himself every Black Crusade, and then chuckles every time Failbaddon goes back, and then tells Cegorach to shut the fuck up about his kids, only he gets to call them traitorous bags of shit.

I am pretty sure that Emperor acts as the one in TTS, meaning that he has no flaws and it was obviously all because of Magnus. FUCKING MAGNUS, HE DID EVERYTHING WRONG.

Stay frosty and as always, DEUS IMPERATOR VULT.